Re: LP Press Release: Jerry Springer (fwd)
Daniel C. Burton (dan@autobahn.org)
25 Mar 1998 01:53:22 GMT
Kevin Dempsey Peterson <peterson@ocf.Berkeley.EDU> wrote in article
<Pine.SOL.3.96.980323170902.4869A-100000@apocalypse.OCF.Berkeley.EDU>...
> On 19 Mar 1998, Daniel C. Burton wrote:
>
> >Kevin Dempsey Peterson <peterson@autobahn.org> wrote in article
>
> >> (which still leaves those who oppose abortion free to not have one),
and
> >> drop the "stable currency" thing -- if people want to trade with
rubber
> >> dollars, that's their business (though I support the "no government
> >> monopoly on money" idea).
> >
> >There is no "stable currency" thing. That's just Harry Browne and
Milton
> >Friedman. The Libertarian Party Platform is to end government control
of
> >currency, abolish the Federal Reserve Board, and move to a free market
for
> >private bank notes.
>
> I remember reading from David (is it David?) Nolan about "fiat" this,
> "fiat" that, and how it was going to cause the end of the world. Harry
> Browne, Milton Friedman and David Nolan are pretty representative as to
> the Libertarian Party. Section II, subsection on Inflation and
> Depression in the current Platform shows the LP's preoccupation with
> gold over "fiat" money.
>
> http://www.lp.org/platform/iad.html
>
Harry Browne, Milton Friedman, and David Nolan are not representative of
the Libertarian Party; the Libertarian Party Platfrom is. Harry Browne
didn't even vote in any electon before 1996 and is certainly not a
long-time member of the Libertarian Party. Milton Friedman was never even
a member of the Libertarian Party at all. And David Nolan is just one
person.
The Libertarian Party Platform is the only thing that represents the
positions of the grassroots members of the Libertarian Party. The
individual officers may come and go, but the platform is an accurate
representation of the long-term pulse of the party. When the country was
farther the left, the party was criticized for being too far to the left,
but the platform was the same. Eventually it was the platform, not the
people that prevailed, because look where we are now -- not farther to the
left, but about as far to the right as we were to the left before.
As far as that platform section, I don't know what you're talking about.
The platform says "Individuals engaged in voluntary exchange should be free
to use as money any mutually agreeable commodity or item." How much
clearer can you get than that? Sure it mentions gold, but only because
that's from an economic standpoint what people probably would use (though
probably through paper bank notes), and because there were once specific
laws against ownership and use of gold in the United States.
Fiat money doesn't mean unbacked paper money. It means money ordered into
existence by the government. Anything people use for money that isn't
issued by the government can't be fiat money by definition.
Don't knock the significance of devaluing currency. Look at what it did in
several Asian countries recently. How would you like the money in your
pocket to suddenly be worth a quarter of what it is now?
> It's just like the Springer thing -- the LP doesn't officially condemn
> fiat money as such, since people are free to use anything they want as
> currency, elm leaves, gold coins, or even worthless scraps of money,
> though it's pretty clear that any rational person wouldn't accept
> anything but specie; just like the LP doesn't officially condemn the
> "perversity" protrayed on the Jerry SPringer show, just fed. funds being
> used to subtitle it.
Exactly what is wrong with condemning federal funds being used for some
specific purpose? Since this is an actual issue going through congress, I
would expect the Libertarian Party to make some comment on it.
>
> It's like, there is the official platform, which I tend to agree with,
> and then there is what you can see the people who wrote the platform
> were thinking, which I tend to find incomprehensible. Of course, I'll
> be voting libertarian, because tehy are orders of magnitude closer to
> what I would like than any other party, but I still don't think they are
> 100% right.
With all due respect, I don't think you're seeing what the people were
thinking accurately. All the platform points flow pretty directly from the
principles of private property and self-ownership.