This site is devoted to the production, distribution, and distribution of reusable tools — both physical and mental — for increasing the amount of liberty we have in this fair land and elsewhere.
This collection of essays began as essays on Libertarian strategy, but I have branched out since then. In fact, I am no longer a member of the Libertarian Party. The party is dominated too much by purists and those who want the party to be the mouthpiece of an ideology vs. a tool for electing freedom oriented politicians. Also, my own ideology has drifted from pure libertarianism, to something more practical and more sensitive to concerns other than liberty (see below).
The next two headings are my post-LP work. The following headings point to my work when I was still a Libertarian. Many of the articles are applicable to third parties in general, so I have left them up on the site. And, there is always the possibility that the Libertarian Party could be reformed...
Freedom is valuable, but it is not the only political value. It is perfectly reasonable for people to be concerned about other values such as helping the poor or preserving the environment. On my Holistic Politics site, I promote an agenda based on those synergies where we can increase freedom and equality while doing a better job of preserving the environment.
Yes, there are trade-offs between these values—at the extremes. But our current political situation is suboptiminal in all three dimensions. After we have run out of synergies, we can revisit the issues of which trade-offs to make.
Want more freedom but find the Libertarian Party to be too radical? Want smaller government and smaller corporations? Do you want a land that is green and free?
Perhaps it is time for a new political party that combines these values. In this "business plan" I take a hard look at the serious challenges that face any third party, and possible ways to surmount those challenges.
This plan has ideas that could be useful for one or more of the existing third parties, should they be willing to depart from past practices.
The per unit cost of advertising media (signs, bumper stickers, etc.) goes down dramatically with larger orders. There is a significant overhead associated with each print run. Fortunately, because we are a party of principle, it is possible to share print runs among multiple campaigns, to achieve economies of scale while each campaign is by itself small. This section documents several experiments along this idea, as well as speculations for future experiments.
The first step in recruiting and motivating moderate libertarians is to find them. The World's Smallest Political Quiz does a fine job of find the hardcore natural rights libertarians, but does a mediocre job of finding those who want moderate increases in liberty across the board. Note that when I say "moderate", I mean those who want to "only" cut taxes by 50%, or "just" legalize marijuana.
The Enhanced-Precision Quiz in 2D is available for download to run on old 486 PCs at outreach booths or as the online quiz found at this site.
Selling is all well and good, but corporate America discovered long ago that the real key to success is in marketing. This section describes the extremely important topic of positioning, and how it can be used to deal with the "Lesser of Two Evils" dilemma.
R. Lee Wrights was kind enough to grant me a column on his Liberty for All web site. They will eventually form the basis for a "success manual" for Libertarians.
| Two Models of Growth | Some say, to increase liberty, the Libertarian Party must grow. I say, to grow, the Libertarian Party must increase liberty -- using existing resources. |
| A Realistic Vision of Victory | For too long, the Libertarian Party has focused a victory condition that requires phenomenal growth to be remotely attainable. Thus, success is always on the distant horizon. The result: not so phenomenal growth. Herein is a set of victory conditions that we can begin to achieve in the near future -- should we attempt to. | Excuses for Liberty | Wonder why the average Libertarian Candidate has the charisma of a math professor? Wonder why we need organizations like the Advocates for Self Government so badly? The roots are in the philosophical approaches many libertarians use to "prove" why liberty is "right." |
| Dirt Cheap Marketing | An essay discussing how to get the word out much more cheaply than current LPHQ efforts. See also the online store on this web site and the presentation on the Economy of Scale Project also found on this web site. |
| Victory in Indianapolis | Sanity reigns at the 2002 LP convention. (This one will not be part of the manual. LFA required convention reporting for this issue.) |
| Mass-Producing Libertarians | This essay contains a high-level strategic lens though which all growth strategies and election strategies can be viewed. This will be one of the first chapters when these are turned into a manual. |
| Less Thinking, More Drinking | So you are in an affiliate that is too small to win an election, can you do anything of value to libertarians, now? You bet! |
| The Power of Double Negative Thinking | It is not just what you do, but what you choose not to do that leads to success. Libertarians apply this principle to government all the time, but frequently fail to apply the principle to the Libertarian Party. |
| A Coherent Vision of Freedom | Why is it that the Libertarian Party get accused of being anarchistic while at the same time it fails to get the anarchist vote? The answer: the Libertarian vision is an incomplete vision of freedom! This is one of most important essays in this series. |
| Introducing: "The Milsted Chart" | This one goes with the previous one. It is the key to successful market positioning. The Nolan Chart does not adequately reflect the political map. It places blood enemies (commies and fascists) in the same place! |
| Ouch! | The 2002 election results were not good for Libertarians. A few reflections on why and what can be done. |
| Reforming LP News | With the loss of Bill Winter as LP News editor, it is a good time to consider where to go next. Do we want staff to continue to have the immense power that Winter had, or should LP News reflect a grassroots volunteer organization? |
| Incrementalating 101 | A few thoughts on why it is critical that Libertarians call for implementing the LP Platform a few steps at a time instead of one indigestible glurp. Victory is impossible otherwise. |
| Incrementalating 102 | Purists, here is how to incrementalate without losing your soul. This one is quite silly, but essential for electoral victory if you are a purist. |
| Let's Party | New places to look for votes. Fun places. |
| Mass-Producing Votes | Back to the bottleneck diagrams, this time for acquiring votes rather than party members. Contains a disturbing implication for Randroids. |
| A Political Marketing Plan | The Libertarian Party's marketing director presented a plan to the State Chairs. It was almost good. Here is how to finish the job. |
| Really Natural Rights | Perhaps the painful unsellability of libertarianism as it is now packaged is due to an error in natural rights theory! Imagine: libertarians committing a theoretical error! |
| Oh, The Negativity! | I have been accused of being negative...because I am negative -- on ideas that don't work. But my overall message is very positive. There is real hope in increasing liberty now -- if we are willing to adopt the correct strategies. |
| The Virtue of Benevolence | Does teaching Ayn Rand's philosphy lead to a free society? The answer is a resounding no! Surprised? Read on! |
| Lit Dropping 301 | My attempt at an advance course on lit dropping. These were directions for lit droppers in the Dave Goree for Asheville campaign. Given the results of that campaign, you might want to take this one with a grain of salt. |
| A Libertarian Media Conspiracy | Not getting covered in the liberal media? Create your own! That's what Kevin Rollins did when he created The Free Liberal. |
| Why I am a Warmmonger | Destroying a bloodthirsty dictatorship: is this anti-libertarian?? Or is it a giant, albeit ugly, step for more liberty? |
| It's a Rough World | To sand down the rough spots, you need coarse sandpaper, even though this temporarily can roughen up the smooth spots. Similarly, the quickest path to a libertarian society leads through stages that are not libertarian. |
| What to Tax? | Anarchy is not popular. Political victory is about popularity. Deal with it. This means that Libertarians need to advocate some type of taxes in order to be relevant. But which taxes? |
| It's the Message | The Libertarian Slate didn't do so well in 2004. It was not due to a hostile press, nor BCRA, nor crooked/incompetant LP leaders, nor bad salesmanship. The problem was simply this: we have a flawed message. |
| Let's Fix the Platform | A call to fix the LP Platform. Since it is the message that is the problem, and the platform is the basis for the message that we project, here is where we need to focus our efforts. |
| Announcing: The Libertarian Reform Caucus | All this calling for "fixing the message" and "fixing the platform" was leading up to this: the announcement of a caucus of people bent on doing just these things. |