Platform
The preamble outlines the party's goal: "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." Its Statement of Principles begins: "We, the members of the Libertarian Party, challenge the cult of the omnipotent state and defend the rights of the individual." The platform emphasizes individual liberty in personal and economic affairs, avoidance of "foreign entanglements" and military and economic intervention in other nations' affairs, and free trade and migration. It calls for Constitutional limitations on government as well as the elimination of most state functions. It includes a "Self-determination" section which quotes from the Declaration of Independence and reads: "Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of individual liberty, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to agree to such new governance as to them shall seem most likely to protect their liberty." It also includes an "Omissions" section which reads: "Our silence about any other particular government law, regulation, ordinance, directive, edict, control, regulatory agency, activity, or machination should not be construed to imply approval."
Read more about this topic: Libertarian Party (United States)
Famous quotes containing the word platform:
“Across Parker Avenue from the fort is the Site of the Old Gallows, where 83 men “stood on nothin’, a-lookin’ up a rope.” The platform had a trap wide enought to “accommodate” 12 men, but half that number was the highest ever reached. On two occasions six miscreants were executed. There were several groups of five, some quartets and trios.”
—Administration in the State of Arka, U.S. public relief program. Arkansas: A Guide to the State (The WPA Guide to Arkansas)
“It was a favor for which to be forever silent to be shown this vision. The earth beneath had become such a flitting thing of lights and shadows as the clouds had been before. It was not merely veiled to me, but it had passed away like the phantom of a shadow, skias onar, and this new platform was gained. As I had climbed above storm and cloud, so by successive days’ journeys I might reach the region of eternal day, beyond the tapering shadow of the earth.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The use of literature is to afford us a platform whence we may command a view of our present life, a purchase by which we may move it.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)