Document:Libertarian Party Radical Caucus Platform 2016: Difference between revisions

[YOU TOUCH THIS AND CARYN WILL KILL YOU]

=Preamble=

===2. Families and Children===

We believe that families and households are private institutions which should be free from government intrusion and interference. Parents, or other guardians, have the right to raise their children according to their own standards and beliefs, however they do not have a right to abandon or recklessly endanger their children. Whenever they are unable or unwilling to raise their children, they have the obligation to find others willing to assume guardianship. Accordingly, we oppose all laws that impede these processes, notably those restricting private adoption services.

Children are human beings and, as such, have all the rights of human beings. Because the exercise of some rights requires the ability to understand the possible consequences from actions, some rights may not be realized until an appropriate level of comprehension and responsibility is reached. Until such time, rights are placed in the custodianship of a guardian who is entrusted to exercise these rights on behalf of the child. Children should always have the right to establish their maturity by assuming administration and protection of their own rights, ending dependency upon their parents or other guardians and assuming all the responsibilities of adulthood.

Whenever parents or other guardians are unable or unwilling to care for their children, those guardians have the right to seek other persons who are willing to assume guardianship, and children have the right to seek other guardians who place a higher value on their lives. Accordingly, we oppose all laws that impede these processes, notably those restricting private adoption services or those forcing children to remain in the custody or removing them from the custody of their parents against their will.

We oppose all laws that empower government officials to seize children and make them "wards of the state" or, by means of child labor laws and compulsory education, to infringe on their freedom to work or learn as they choose. We oppose all legally created or sanctioned discrimination against (or in favor of) children, just as we oppose government discrimination directed at any other artificially defined sub-category of human beings.

We also support the repeal of all laws establishing any category of crimes applicable to children for which adults would not be similarly vulnerable, such as curfew, smoking, and alcoholic beverage laws, and other status offenses. Similarly, we favor the repeal of "stubborn child" laws and laws establishing the category of "persons in need of supervision." We call for an end to the practice in many states of jailing children not accused of any crime. We seek the repeal of all "children's codes" or statutes which abridge due process protections for young people. Juveniles should be held fully responsible for their crimes in accordance with their maturity and ability to administer their own rights and responsibilities.

===4. Freedom of Association and Discrimination===

Libertarians embrace the concept that all people are born with certain inherent rights.  We reject the idea that a natural right can ever impose a positive obligation upon others to fulfill that right.  

Discrimination imposed by government causes a multitude of problems and violates inherent rights.  Government should not deny, abridge, or enhance any individual’s inherent rights for any reason and any laws  which currently do so should be repealed rather than extended to all groups.

Anti-discrimination laws that regulate or prohibit private behavior create the same problems and violate the same inherent rights. We condemn private discrimination as irrational and repugnant; however, we support the abolition of all laws that attempt to limit or ban it.

The right to trade includes the right not to trade—for any reasons whatsoever; the right of association includes the right not to associate—for any reasons whatsoever, for exercise of these rights depend upon mutual consent.  Individuals and private organizations, including businesses, retain their rights to set whatever standards of association and terms of voluntary interaction they deem appropriate, and other individuals and private businesses are free to respond with ostracism, boycotts, and other free market solutions.

===5. Freedom of Communications===

The First Amendment to the Constitution is meant as an acknowledgment of an inherent right, rather than a granting of rights that can be restricted or revoked for so-called necessity. This Amendment is meant to limit government interference with this natural right, rather than to confine it to a realm of "acceptable speech." An important corollary to the right to speech is the right to silence.  

We defend the rights of individuals to unrestricted freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and the right of individuals to unfettered expression. We recognize that freedom of expression is possible only as part of a system of full property rights. At the same time, we recognize that freedom of communication does not extend to the use of other people's property to promote one's ideas without the voluntary consent of the owners.  

We oppose any abridgment of the freedom of speech through government censorship, regulation or control of media.  

Language that is deemed offensive is not a cause for legal action. We oppose speech codes at all schools that are primarily tax funded, as well as laws against "hate speech".  

We call for the abolition of the Federal Communications Commission as we would provide for market ownership of broadcast spectra.

We oppose government ownership or subsidy of, or funding for, any communications organization.  

We support the right to individual and group privacy via encryption, and oppose any government efforts to restrict encryption development or deployment.  

We oppose court orders or rules restricting news coverage of court proceedings. Members of the media should not have any special protections not available to everyone, including the right not to reveal sources to investigators or courts.

===6. Freedom of Religion===

We defend the rights of individuals to engage or not engage in any religious activities which do not violate the rights of others. In order to defend religious freedoms, we advocate a strict separation of church and state. We oppose government actions which define, aid or attack any religion or religious membership. We oppose taxation of church property for the same reason we oppose all taxation.

Legislative, regulatory, or judicial decisions about what is a crime must not discriminate on the basis of religious belief or membership; no religious test should ever be required to assert the right to act in a way that does not violate the rights of others, and similarly there must be no religious exemption from responsibility for actions which do violate the rights of others.

===7. Human Rights===

We seek a world adhering to the principles of liberty, ushering in a new age of international harmony. We condemn the violations of human rights in all nations around the world. We particularly abhor the widespread and increasing use of torture for interrogation and punishment. We condemn the use of force, especially the use of terrorism, against the innocent, regardless of whether such acts are committed by government groups.

The violation of rights and liberty by other governments can never justify foreign intervention by the United States government. No government is innocent of violating human rights and liberty, and none can approach the issue with clean hands. Only private individuals and organizations have any place speaking out on this issue.

===8. Justice for the Individual===

The present system of criminal law is based almost solely on punishment with little concern for the victim. We support restitution for the victim to the fullest degree possible at the expense of the criminal or wrongdoer. Aggressors should be required to compensate their victims and pay for costs of their trial and apprehension. Those unwilling to make payments towards a court-ordered judgment should be placed in a competitive private prison agreed up on by arbitrarial procedures.  

We oppose all "no-fault" insurance laws, which deprive the victim of the right to recover damages from those responsible in the case of injury. We also support the right of the victim to pardon the criminal or wrongdoer, barring threats to the victim for this purpose. We applaud the growth of private adjudication of disputes by mutually acceptable judges.

===9. Protection of Privacy===

The individual's right to privacy, property, and right to speak or not to speak should not be infringed by  any government. Governments should not use electronic or other means of covert surveillance of an individual's actions or private property without the express consent of the owner or occupant. Correspondence, bank and other financial transactions and records, medical records, legal records, employment records, and the like should not be open to review without the express consent of all parties involved in those actions.

We support the rights protected by the Fourth Amendment and oppose any government use of search warrants to examine or seize materials belonging to innocent third parties. We also oppose and call for the abolition of police roadblocks aimed at randomly, and without probable cause, testing drivers for intoxicants, police practices to stop mass transit vehicles and search passengers without probable cause, and Terry stops (also called “stop-and-frisk”).

Current Census forms are lengthy, invasive, and costly to send and tabulate. The Census form should be on a postcard asking only how many people live at the address. That would raise response rates dramatically, protect Americans' privacy, and comply with the Constitution. It's inexpensive, obvious, and practical.

We support the rights of people to develop, sell, and use encryption technology and distributed software that allows users to protect their privacy. Specifically, we oppose any requirement for disclosure of encryption methods or keys (“back doors”) and any requirement for use of government-specified devices or protocols. We also oppose government classification of civilian research on encryption methods, and we oppose any attempts to regulate virtual currencies.

When government agencies violate privacy rights, people who are knowledgeable of these violations have a duty to inform the public. To that end, we support protections for whistleblowers and oppose efforts to charge whistleblowers with espionage for exposing governmental wrongdoing.

If a private employer screens prospective or current employees for drugs or medical conditions, that is a term of that employee's labor contract with the employer. Such screening does not violate the rights of employees, who have the right to boycott such employers if they choose. Private contractual arrangements, including labor contracts, must be founded on mutual consent and agreement in a society that upholds freedom of association. We oppose any use of such screening by government; we also oppose mandating it of private employers.

===10. Safeguards for the Criminally Accused===

Until such time as a person is proved guilty of a crime, that person should be accorded all possible respect for his individual rights. We are thus opposed to reduction of present safeguards for 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 oppose labeling cases as civil in order to avoid the due process protections of criminal law and we further oppose pretrial seizure of property. We oppose police officers using excessive force, preventive detention, and no-knock raids.

Whenever malfeasance of government agents results in persons being arrested, indicted, tried, imprisoned, or otherwise injured in the course of criminal proceedings, injured parties should receive full restitution. We look ultimately to the voluntary funding of this restitution.

We call for a reform of the judicial system allowing parties to a court action a reasonable number of challenges to proposed judges, similar to their right under the present system to challenge a proposed juror.

===12. The Right to Keep and Bear Arms===

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 seek to be, or agree to be, aided by any other individual or group in the exercise of the right to self-defense. Private property owners shall be free to establish their own conditions regarding weapons. The right of defense extends to defense against aggressive acts of government.  

Maintaining our belief in the inviolability of the right to keep and bear arms and that individuals are their own best source of self-defense; we oppose all laws at any level of government restricting, registering, or monitoring the ownership, manufacture, transport, or transfer of firearms, ammunition, or any other tool that could be used for self-defense.  In addition, we oppose all laws requiring registration of firearms or ammunition. We also oppose any government efforts to ban or restrict the use of other self-defensive tools, including (but not limited to) pepper spray, stun guns, tear gas (mace).  We further oppose all attempts to ban weapons or ammunition.  

Libertarians view background check laws as a back-door method for the government to acquire information on gun buyers -- which history has shown is often later used as a confiscation list. Therefore, we support abolishing all government-required background checks.

Finally, we support repeal of all gun and weapon control laws. We favor the implementation of "Constitutional Carry" (fully-legal carry of weapons, open or concealed, without any permit requirement). We support abolishing the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (BATFE).

===13. The Right to Property===

We hold that property rights are individual rights and, as such, are entitled to the same protections as all other individual rights. Individuals have the right to homestead unowned resources, both within the jurisdictions of governments and within any unclaimed territory. We further hold that the owners of property have the full right to control, use, dispose of, or in any manner enjoy their property without interference until and unless the exercise of their control infringes the valid rights of others.

Eminent domain, civil asset forfeiture, governmental limits on profits, governmental production mandates, and governmental controls on prices of goods and services (including wages, rents, and interest) are abridgements of such fundamental rights.

Where property, including land, has been taken from its rightful owners in violation of individual rights, we favor restitution to the rightful owners.

We specifically condemn current government efforts to regulate or ban the use of property in the name of aesthetic values, riskiness, moral standards, cost-benefit estimates, or the promotion or restriction of economic growth. We demand an end to the taxation of privately owned real property, which makes the State the de facto owner of all lands and forces individuals to rent their homes and places of business from the State.

===14. The War on Drugs===

The so-called "War on Drugs" is in reality a war on people. We deplore the suffering that drug misuse has brought about; however, drug prohibition is more dangerous than drugs themselves and comes with a staggering cost in both money and human lives. The War on Drugs is a grave threat to individual liberty, to domestic order, and to peace in the world; furthermore, it has provided a rationale by which the power of the state has been expanded to restrict greatly our right to privacy and to be secure in our homes.

While we do not advocate drug misuse, we are in favor of alternative solutions that do not increase the power of the state. Additionally, we favor the elimination of all laws establishing criminal or civil penalties for the use of drugs, and the abolition of bureaucracies like the Drug Enforcement Agency.

==II. The Market==

We believe that each person has the right to offer goods and services to others on the free market. Therefore we oppose all intervention by government into the area of economics. The only justifiable role of existing governments in the economic realm is to protect property rights, adjudicate disputes, and provide a legal framework in which voluntary trade is protected.

Efforts to forcibly redistribute wealth or forcibly manage trade are intolerable. Government manipulation of the economy creates an entrenched privileged class and an exploited class.

We believe that all individuals have the right to dispose of the fruits of their labor as they see fit and that governments have no right to take such wealth. We oppose government-enforced charity such as welfare programs and subsidies, but we heartily applaud those individuals and private charitable organizations that help the needy and contribute to a wide array of worthwhile causes through voluntary activities.

===1. Finance and Capital Investment===

We call for the abolition of all regulation of financial and capital markets -- specifically, the abolition of the Securities and Exchange Commission(SEC). Regulations have created a system whereby what is legal for the elites in Congress is illegal for anyone else this will include all insider trading laws. The SEC epitomizes the corruption that exists within the area of Capital Investment.

We oppose any attempts to ban or regulate investing in stock-market index futures or new financial instruments which may emerge in the future. In particular, Blue Sky laws which limit small and risky investments need to be repealed.

===2. Inflation and Depression===

We recognize that government control over money and banking is the primary cause of inflation and depression. Individuals engaged in voluntary exchange should be free to own and use as money any mutually agreeable item: such as commodity based currency, like gold coins denominated by units of weight, or cryptocurrency, like Bitcoin. We favor the elimination of all government fiat money and all government minted coins. All restrictions upon the private minting of coins should be abolished so that minting can be open to the competition of the free market. We call for the state to desist attempts to regulate cryptocurrency as well as the abolition of all state usury laws.

We favor free-market banking. We call for the abolition of the National Banking System, and all similar national and state interventions affecting banking and credit. Our opposition encompasses all controls on the rate of interest. There should be unrestricted competition among banks and depository institutions of all types, including private insurance agencies competing for the business of protecting investors deposits that is current granted as limited and without competition by the the National Credit Union Administration and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

We call for the legalization of domestic deposits denominated in foreign currencies.

Above all we call for the abolition of the unaccountable Federal Reserve that issues its own money created without oversight and lends it at interest to the government and other banking institutions.

We therefore call for the repeal of all legal tender laws and of all compulsory governmental units of account.

===3. Intellectual Monopoly and File Sharing===

The phrase “intellectual property” is a misnomer. What the state calls intellectual property is more accurately referred to as “Intellectual Monopoly” as the state grants a monopoly on the use of an idea or goods and services derived from an idea to a certain limited group. We call for the elimination of the protection of such monopoly thereby freeing the market, encouraging content providers and product developers to improve on existing products thereby bringing more and better choices to the market.  

In particularly we call for the end of the prohibition of online file sharing, just as we oppose all victimless crimes. When content is shared it is not stolen as no one looses any property, only a potential loss of some future revenue, which is natural in any open market.

===5. Monopolies===

Governments, through grants of legal privilege to special interests, are the source of monopolies across the nation. Furthermore, throughout our nation’s history, Antitrust laws have served monopolies by limiting competition.  

Therefore, we condemn all coercive monopolies; including Public Utilities and the US Postal Service because competition has brought better products at lower prices. In order to facilitate their elimination, we advocate a strict separation of business and State, and we call for the repeal of all antitrust laws, including the Sherman Anti Trust Act, the Clayton Antitrust Act, Robinson-Patman Act, and Celler-Kefauver Act. We further call for the abolition of the Federal Trade Commission and the anti-trust division of the Department of Justice. Laws of incorporation should not include grants of monopoly privilege. In particular, we oppose special limits on the liability of corporations for damages caused in noncontractual transactions. Government has demonstrated that it is unable to compete in the market for such services as cable television, electricity, fire protection, garbage collection, natural gas, postal service, telephone, or water supplies unless it has monopolistic protections on those services.

Antitrust measures would be unnecessary in a market free of state-imposed distortions. In addition we defend the right of individuals to form corporations, cooperatives, and other types of companies based on voluntary association. We favor the elimination of state or federal limits on the size of private companies and on the right of companies to merge. We also favor the elimination of efforts to expand federal chartering as a pretext for government control of business, particularly those involving industries where government could attempt to create its own monopoly.

===8. The Economy===

Government intervention in the economy imperils both the personal freedom and the material prosperity of every American. To ensure the economic freedom and enhance the economic well-being of people residing in the United States, we would implement the following policies:

a. Opposition to all taxation and government spending;

b. Opposition to deficit budgets;

c. Opposition to the Federal Reserve’s monetary policies;

d. Opposition to government road blocks to free trade; and

===9. Trade Barriers===

===10. Subsidies===

In order to achieve a free economy in which government victimizes no one for the benefit of any other, we oppose all government subsidies. Subsidies can take the form of so-called public-private partnerships, government contracting, mandatory insurance, and similar polices.  

We oppose all government guarantees of loans. Such guarantees transfer resources to special interests as effectively as actual government expenditures and, at the national level, exceed direct government loans in total amount. All national, state, and local government agencies whose primary function is to guarantee loans should be abolished.

Relief or exemption from taxation or from any other involuntary government intervention should not be considered a subsidy.

===11. Unions and Collective Bargaining===

Private sector labor unions, when they are organized as non-coercive and voluntary associations for such purposes as peaceful negotiations, are a part of everyone's freedom of association.

We support the right of people to associate or not associate in labor unions, just as we recognize that the existence of a union does not grant powers that the individuals within the union do not posess. The existence of boycotts, strikes, and lockouts does not justify the initiation of violence against other workers, employers, strike-breakers, or innocent bystanders.

We oppose government interference in bargaining such as compulsory arbitration or the imposition of an obligation to bargain. Therefore, we urge repeal of the National Labor Relations Act and all laws that prohibit employers from making voluntary contracts with unions. We oppose all government back-to-work orders as the imposition of a form of forced labor.

===12. Space Exploration===

The development of space and the establishment of a spacefaring civilization, being in the greatest common good of the human race, should not be restricted by governments.

We oppose all government restrictions upon voluntary peaceful use of outer space. We condemn all international attempts to control, prevent, or limit private exploration, industrialization, and colonization of the moon, planets, asteroids, satellite orbits, Lagrange points, or any other extra-terrestrial resources.

It is important to allow free market entrants to create innovative launch systems and business models, and for them and their customers to determine their own acceptable levels of risk.

Therefore, we support the abolition of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and replacing its functions with private-sector alternatives.