American Liberal Party

Political Opinions

The main political opinions of the Liberal Party of the United States include:

Support the principle of laissez-faire and completely abolish the government’s influence on the economy. In practice, this principle includes: large-scale tax cuts, privatization of social welfare systems (including both individuals and companies), the elimination of government control over commerce, the abolition of labor controls such as the minimum wage, and the cessation of government interference in international trade.

Protect private property.

Minimize government bureaucracy. The Liberal Party believes that the government’s responsibility should be limited to protecting individual rights from violence and fraud by others.

Strongly support civil liberties, including the right to privacy, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of sex.

There is still controversy within the Liberal Party on the issue of abortion. Liberals who support abortion argue that women should have the right to manage their bodies and that the government should not interfere on the basis of their personal rights. Liberals who oppose abortion believe that unborn babies also have personal rights and therefore should be protected.

The right to support self-defense is not restricted, and the control of firearms and weapons is opposed.

Support to stop banning the so-called "victimless crimes" (prostitution, driving without a license, buying and selling, and drug use).

We oppose conscription.

Support free trade and diplomatic non-interventionism.

Support the fiscal policy of reducing government expenditure and advocating living within our means.

The Liberal Party declares that its policy is to promote mutual respect for individual rights and freedom, and firmly support a society based on individual freedom as its moral foundation. In their party platform, they stated: “We believe that all individuals have the right to have his own life and the right to choose any life they want, as long as the boundary is equal rights that do not interfere with others.” , The Liberals hope to significantly reduce the size of the government (completely abolish many of its existing functions).

Party introduction

Liberals usually oppose the view of politics as a one-sided spectrum—that is, a division where the Democratic Party represents the left and the Republican Party represents the right, because of the one-sided political spectrum It cannot cover many political and philosophical positions of the public. Libertarians have also proposed the Nolan curve to illustrate their political position. An updated version of the Nolan curve has also appeared, consisting of 10 test questions (five issues related to economic freedom and five issues related to personal freedom). , This test is called "the smallest political test in the world", which allows the subjects to understand their political leanings.

Including many political observers, they all believe that libertarians and liberals are more biased towards American conservatives (mainly because of their support for gun rights and opposition to taxation), but some believe that They are more inclined to American liberals because they support international non-interventionism, advocate the abolition of drug control, and abolish the prohibition on voluntary acts between private individuals (such as prostitution and gambling). In fact, the Liberals are neither conservatives nor liberals; the political philosophy they represent is completely independent and unique. There are often people who think that the Liberal Party must be classified as a traditional conservative or a traditional liberal. Regardless of where this idea comes from, the Liberal Party has suffered the negative effects of this prejudice in many past elections.

With libertarianism as the central idea, the political views of the Liberal Party are biased towards the anarchic capitalism of the Rothbard school. The Liberal Party advocates that government control should be eliminated as much as possible in accordance with the norms of the U.S. Constitution, but at the same time it also supports any person or group that resists state control. Like many political parties, there are some political disputes within the Liberal Party. Not all Liberal parties support the direct abolition of the government, but most people believe that Americans can get positive results from these changes.

History

John Hospers, after many discussions and designs by libertarians, the Liberal Party was established on December 11, 1971 in David Nolan (the Nolan curve Inventor)’s home. The original founding party members included John Hospers, Murray Rothbard, Theodora Nathan and others. The United States was at a time when President Richard Nixon imposed a lot of price controls and government intervention. The Liberal Party believed that the largest Democratic and Republican parties had betrayed the ideas of the founding fathers of the United States.

By the time of the 1972 presidential election, the Liberal Party had grown to more than 80 party members and had been candidature in two states. The candidates they proposed in the first presidential election—John Hospers and Theodora Nathan—won less than 3,000 votes in the general election, but unexpectedly got one that should have been voted for Richard during the electoral college voting stage. Nixon’s Electoral College ballot-voted by Roger MacBride, an elector from Virginia. Although it is impossible to change the election result, his vote has become the only vote in American history so far. Electoral votes for female candidates. MacBride also became the Liberal Party's presidential candidate in the 1976 presidential election.

In 1978, Dick Randolph of Alaska won the local state House of Representatives election and became the first representative of the Liberal Party membership.

In the 1980 presidential election, the Liberal Party has obtained candidacy in all fifty states of the United States, including the District of Columbia and Guam. This is the first time this threshold has been reached since the American Socialist Party in 1916. Third party. The candidates Ed Clark and David Koch nominated by the Liberal Party spent millions of dollars in the election campaign and won more than 1% of the popular vote, making them the most successful election in the history of the Liberal Party.

On December 29, 1981, the first Liberal Party candidate to be elected to a public office in the United States appeared. Richard P. Siano, who was originally a Boeing 707 pilot at Trans World Airlines, appeared. Invested in a town committee election in a small town in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, and opposed both Democratic and Republican candidates. The fairly close election results led to another special election in the town on December 29, 1981. As a result, he won 63% of the votes and won the election. He served as a member of the town committee for three years.

Edward Crane

In 1983, there were disagreements within the Liberal Party on some issues. The former party leaders Edward Crane and David Koch withdrew from the party and took away some of their supporters. .

In 1984, the Liberal Party nominated David Bergland as a presidential candidate. He was eligible for candidacy in 36 states and received 0.25% of the popular vote.

In 1987, Doug Anderson became the first Libertarian to be elected to public office in a major city and became a member of the Denver City Election Committee (later he was elected to the Colorado City Council in 2005).

In 1988, former Republican Congressman Ron Paul won the Liberal Party’s primary nomination and was eligible for candidacy in 46 states. Paul later was successfully elected to the California House of Representatives as a Republican, and he has been in office to this day.

In 1992, Andre Marrou, a member of the Alaska State Legislature of the Liberal Party and also a 1988 Ron Paul campaign partner, chose lawyer Nancy Lord as his campaign partner and became the Liberal Party’s presidential candidate. This time the Liberal Party once again won the candidacy in all 50 states, including the SAR and Guam.

In 1994, howard Stern, a celebrity radio host, ran for governor of New York State and ran for the election as a Liberal Party. Although he is legally eligible for the election and he did participate in the election campaign for a period of time, many people think that his candidacy is nothing more than symbolic public propaganda. He later withdrew his candidacy because he did not want to disclose his financial status in accordance with the provisions of the election law.

Harry Browne

Harry Browne, who served as a business investment consultant, became the Liberal Party’s presidential candidate in 1996 and 2000. The vice president partner was an entrepreneur Jo from South Carolina in 1996. Jorgensen, in 2000, was Art Olivier from California. The Liberal Party once again won the candidacy in all 50 states, including the SAR and Guam.

In all these presidential elections, the Liberal Party's vote ratio was about one-third to one-half of the 1% of the total votes. In the 2000 presidential election, the Arizona Party Department, which had been dissatisfied with the National Central Party Department since 1991, decided to nominate science fiction novelist L. Neil Smith and journalist Vin Suprynowicz instead of Browne and Olivier. . In the end, Smith and Suprynowicz received 5,775 votes (0.38%) in the state.

In the 2004 election, the Liberal Party’s candidate primaries were quite fierce. Three candidates-Michael Badnarik, a firearms rights advocate and software designer, Gary Nolan, a radio talk show host, and Aaron Russo, a Hollywood producer, all competed for the nomination. The votes differed by less than 2%. After two elimination elections, Badnarik finally won.

The current chairman of the Liberal Party is Bill Redpath, and the chairman of the party committee is Shane Cory.

In mid-2005, the Liberal Party National Committee voted to abolish the levy of party dues on party members, which will take effect on January 1, 2006. However, this change also caused a lot of controversy, and was finally revoked by the National Committee in the summer of 2006. The current basic membership fee for joining the Liberal Party is $25 (known as "basic party members"). There is also a requirement that all representatives of the National Committee must have at least basic party membership (there was no such requirement before the change).

The 2006 National Congress also had a lot of influence on the political views of the Liberal Party. Some representatives voted to change their political views to attract wider voter support, while others believed that the entire party platform needed to be rewritten. In addition, the delegates did not obtain a copy of the full text of the current party platform, and some people declared that they were quite dissatisfied with it. Regardless of the reasons for the change in the party platform, the new party platform has become shorter, but the main issues of the party platform remain unchanged.

There are some people in the party who want to actually rewrite the content of the party platform, especially groups dominated by the Reform Caucus of the Liberal Party. However, not all party members support the revision of the party platform. Some people think that the revision of the party platform is a violation of libertarianism, and that the parts proposed to be revised are just the most important central ideas of the Liberal Party.

American Liberal Party-Relationship with Major Political Parties

At the local level, David F. Nolan, the Liberal Party usually joins (and sometimes even leads) cross-party and non-partisan issues coalitions . As David Nolan advocated, the Liberal Party will emphasize "consensus and a joint structure" on important issues related to its supporters. The Liberal Party also lobbies on the state, regional, and national political arena. According to a survey conducted by the Libertarian International Organization, members of the Liberal Party across the country initiate more than 500 initiatives each year.

The Liberal Party and the Democratic Party and the Republican Party have considerable differences in position. However, traditionally, the Republican Party and the Liberal Party cooperate and influence each other more greatly. For example, Newt Gingrich, a former spokesperson for the Republican Party, declared that he was a supporter of libertarian principles, and many Liberals also praised his political stance for trying to reduce the size of the government. American conservatives usually adopt similar positions and theories economically to libertarianism and criticize the government's control and intervention in the market. For example, they often quote the research proposed by the Libertarian Cato Institute. The 1988 Liberal Party presidential candidate Ron Paul was a Republican congressman from Texas and a member of the Republican Liberty Caucus, which is a faction of libertarian members within the Republican Party. On the other hand, the Liberal Party also has a certain influence on the Democratic Party. The Democratic Freedom Caucus is a faction formed by a group of Democrats who tend to be libertarian. To be more precise, libertarianism itself is more inclined to "liberals" on social issues and more "conservatives" on economic issues.

In some cases where Democratic and Republican elections are approaching, Liberal candidates sometimes turn to support Republican candidates. For example, in the South Carolina senator election in 2002, Liberal Party candidate Kurt Evans suspended his election campaign three weeks before polling day and persuaded supporters to switch to Republican John Thun. The Liberal Party also supported the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, albeit for different reasons (some of his actions are considered unconstitutional). In 1992, when the incumbent Georgia Democratic Senator Wyche Fowler won the general election for reelection, but did not get 50% of the vote and had to vote in the finals, the Liberal candidate publicly announced his support for the Republican candidate Paul D. Coverdell. In the end, Coverdell won the final smoothly.

However, the Liberal Party is sometimes committed to challenging some prominent Republicans, such as former Georgia Rep. Bob Barr. What is interesting is that Barr himself has given speeches at many Liberal Party rallies and events, and he also expressed his support for many positions of the Liberal Party. Later when Barr lost the election, he became a life member of the Liberal Party at the end of 2006 and a member of the National Committee.

The Liberal Party opposes the Republican Party on many civil liberties-related issues. For example, the Liberal Party strongly criticizes the USA PATRIOT Act, believing that it may be used to violate civil rights. The Liberal Party also regards the abolition of drug control as one of its main political opinions. This position is quite rare in the mainstream of the Republican and Democratic parties.

Lonner Reagan, who later became Republican president, accepted it in 1975.

In an interview with Michael Badnarik, he said that American conservatism is actually libertarian, and since the Republicans usually follow The principle of conservatism also shows the close relationship between the Liberal Party and the Republican Party.

However, Harry Browne, a former Liberal Party candidate, pointed out that in the election campaign he received almost half of the votes from traditional Democratic and Republican supporters. The 2004 presidential candidate Michael Badnarik A similar situation was also found. A survey conducted by the Libertarian Citizen in 2002 showed that the Liberal Party received the same percentage of votes from traditional left and right voters, as well as middle voters—30% of middle voters said that if there were no candidates for the Liberal Party, they would never Participate in voting.

St. Petersburg Times and other media speculate that the Liberal Party also has a certain influence on public opinion. The Liberal Party usually has a strong influence in the local government, and sometimes the Liberal Party can be successfully elected to public office. In 2005, the Florida Democratic Department in a region formed an alliance with the Liberal Party to jointly demand that restrictions on candidacy be opened.

Size and influence

U.S. Liberal Party measurement method: In the United States, the Republican Party and the Democratic Party are the two largest parties, and usually the votes obtained by both parties exceed 95% of the total votes . The Liberal Party claims to be the largest third party in the United States, and their claims are also controversial, especially from other third parties such as the Green Party. Generally speaking, there are no separate standards or thresholds for measuring the influence of third parties. Therefore, the following are the measurement methods used by many media to understand the size of the Liberal Party.

2006 midterm elections: The 2006 midterm elections in the United States may provide a reasonable comparison of the size of the third party. In the election, the average number of Liberal candidates (excluding election districts with only one major party candidate) for the House of Representatives position was 2.04%, while the average number of votes for the Green Party candidates for the House of Representatives position was only 1.4%.

Presidential election performance: Liberals will also cite their performance in the presidential election. The candidate they nominate is often the third party with the highest number of votes. In the 2004 election, Michael Badnarik of the Liberal Party received more votes (397,367) than all third party candidates, except for Ralph Nader. Nader ran for the election as a non-party, but also accepted support from the Reform Party that was facing dissolution. Regardless of Nader, the Liberal Party has won more votes than all other third party candidates combined, and it is twice as high as the Constitution Party and three times as high as the Green Party. However, the Liberal Party was overtaken by the Green Party and the Reform Party in both elections in 2000 and 1996. But with the exception of several in recent years, the Liberal Party was the third party with the most votes in the four elections in 1992, 1988, 1984, and 1980 (although in 1992 and 1980, there were no party members. Candidates exceed). No other surviving third party has ever won the record of third place more than two times, and has never won the Electoral College votes, while the Liberal Party accidentally won a record of “disloyal electors” in 1972. "Electoral votes cast.

Candidate qualification: Candidate qualification in each state can be regarded as one of the measures of political party mobilization strength, scale, support, and financial strength. Although some people within the Liberal Party argue that applying for state candidacy should not be one of the goals, the Liberal Party won more state candidacy than the Green Party in 2004 (48 states + special zones vs. 27 states + special zones). In history, the Liberal Party has won the candidacy in all 50 states four times (1980, 1992, 1996, and 2000). No other third party has ever reached such a threshold.

Capacity of fundraising: The ability of fundraising is also regarded as one of the measures of the strength and scale of a political party. The following list is the amount of funds raised by candidates from each party in the 2004 presidential election. The data is provided by the Federal Election Commission (FEC):

George Walker Bush (Republican) $367,228,801

Ralph Nader (non-party membership) $4,566,037

Michael Badnarik (Liberal Party) $1,093,013

Michael Peroutka ( Constitution Party) $709,087

David Cobb (Green Party) $496,658

Although these data only show the funds raised by each candidate’s camp, it can also show what each party has Fundraising power.

Supporters: The Liberal Party also cited their increase in the number of party members who paid party dues. The system for allocating the number of representatives of the National Committee is based on the number of party members who paid party dues ($25 per year).

The benchmark of the American Liberal Party. As of 2006, the Liberal Party had more than 15,505 members.

Number of candidates: In recent elections, the Liberal Party tends to nominate more people to compete for public office. This is true at all levels of elections. The number of candidates they nominate is higher than all other third parties. The sum of political parties. In the 2004 election, there were more than 377 Liberal Party candidates competing for seats in the local state assembly, with only 108 Constitution Party, 94 Green Party, and 11 Reform Party. In the 2000 elections, the Liberal Party nominated a total of about 1,430 people for public office at the local, state, and federal government levels. In the 2002 midterm elections, this number exceeded 1,600. In addition, the total number of votes for these Liberal Party candidates far exceeds that of other third parties: in the 2000, 2002, and 2004 elections, the total number of votes for state House of Representatives candidates nominated by the Liberal Party exceeded one million. Zhang, this number is more than twice the total number of votes received by all other third parties.

Election victory: The Liberal Party has won to some extent at all levels of elections. In the 2002 election, more than 300 Liberals were elected or assigned to state and local public offices. However, most of these Liberal parties are assigned to non-party government positions. Although 12 Liberals were once elected to the state legislature, the Liberal Party currently has no current state legislators. In this respect, it is slightly inferior to the Constitutional Party (one in Montana), the Progressive Party (six in Vermont), and the Central Republican Party. (One from Alaska), and the Labor Family Party (one from New York). Some Liberal candidates competing for state government positions performed well in statewide elections. In the two Massachusetts Senate elections (2000 and 2002), no Republican candidate ran for the election, so the Liberal Party candidates Carla Howell and Michael Cloud won record highs of 11.9% and 19%, respectively. In 2002, the Liberal Party candidate Ed Thompson vie for the governorship of Wisconsin and won 11% of the votes. This allowed the Liberal Party to obtain a seat on the State Electoral Commission, becoming the first in American history to obtain a similar position. Third party.

Registered voters: In July 2006, the Liberal Party ranked fifth in the number of registered voters in the country. The Constitutional Party ranks third with 357,506 registered voters, fourth is the Green Party with 290,165 registered voters, and the Liberal Party ranks fifth with 235,540 registered voters. However, election researcher Richard Winger pointed out that the Constitutional Party has 311,481 members who are actually registered under the "American Independence Party" in California, and these voters should be considered as non-party members. In addition, the Liberal Party has 15 states in the country with the third number of party members, the Green Party only has the third place in 8 states, the Constitution Party has only 2 states, and the Reform Party has only 1 state (only 27 states allow Voters choose to register for a certain political party, and some states prohibit voters from registering for a third party).

If you exclude New York State (where the Liberal Party is only eligible for registration) and California (where there is the American Independence Party), the Liberal Party’s number of registered voters will rank fourth in the country.

Other calculation methods: Other methods of calculating the size of the third party also include calculating the page views of the party’s website. In the Alexa ranking of web views, the official website of the Liberal Party is currently the most visited political party website in the United States.

American Liberal Party-Candidates

Looking at the future presidential election in 2008, until January 2007, the Liberal Party has obtained the presidential candidacy of the following states.

Alaska

Arizona

California

Colorado

Delaware

Florida

Georgia

Hawaii

Ideho

Indiana

Kansas

Louisiana

Maryland

Michigan

Mississippi

Missouri

Montana

Nevada

New Mexico

North Dakota

Oregon

South Carolina

Texas

Vermont

Wisconsin

Wyoming

Personality distinction

A libertarian (lowercase "L") represents a person who believes in libertarian ideals, but he is not necessarily a member of the Liberal Party.

A Libertarian (capital "L") represents a person who believes that the current political system can be effective and correct.

The Liberal Party of the United States promotes libertarian goals, more clearly Said that a "Libertarian" in the United States represents one of the members of the American Liberal Party.

Some "lowercase-l" libertarians insist that they should not go through political system channels out of principle, and often call themselves "voluntaryism" (Voluntaryism). They may also view democracy as "tyranny of the majority."

Other supporters of libertarian philosophies may think that the Liberal Party has little effect in implementing these goals, or they just want to distinguish them from the "capital-L" Liberal Party, because sometimes May be involved in the controversy and negative reputation of other members of the party. For example, Irwin Schiff, who fought for the Liberal Party to nominate the presidential candidate in 1996, argued that the income tax levied by the federal government should be paid voluntarily for most people in the constitution, even though the US Department of Justice ruled that he must pay. Tax evasion of more than $2 million (US dollars) plus interest penalty (but it should be noted that he was no longer a member of the Liberal Party, but had joined the Constitution Party). Therefore, some "lowercase-l" libertarians do not think of themselves as liberals, but they do not think of themselves as non-party members.

Similarly, not all libertarians are liberals. Some candidates have also applied for candidacy in the name of other political parties, but openly stand for election as a Liberal Party in order to obtain the benefits of automatic candidacy, or can participate in the election without collecting a large number of signatures.

Like all other groups, there are also strategic disputes within the Liberal Party. Some members consider themselves the "mainstream" or "practical faction" in the party, while some call themselves the "consensus faction" or "principle faction".

From some people’s point of view, the Liberal Party has been dominated by the so-called principleists since the early 1980s. The departure of Ed Crane and David Koch (members of the Cato Institute) is one example. Crane and some of his supporters left the Liberal Party in 1983 because they lost their seats on the National Committee at the National Congress.

This kind of controversy continued until it heated up again in mid-1990. When a committee called "The Liberal Party to Majority Committee" (CLM) was established in Atlanta, the voices demanding changes to the Liberal Party system were repeated. One time emerges. Another committee called PLEDGE was set up to oppose them. In the long run, CLM still has a certain degree of influence on the National Committee, but it has not been enough to influence the direction of the whole party.

Since about 2004, controversy has reappeared. Many "reform" factions have reappeared, such as the "Liberal Party Reform Coalition". These factions usually advocate the revision of the Liberal Party's platform and the elimination or change of well-known Liberal parties. The oath to join the party (see the principle of non-aggression) advocates that a "political-oriented" strategy should be adopted.　In order to fight against these factions, some factions advocating to maintain the principles of libertarianism have also begun to emerge, such as the "radical Liberals" and the "Rothbard Alliance". These factions advocate that the principles and consistent theory of libertarianism should be maintained, and they should focus on maintaining the same position within the party and among the candidates.