Jim Lark, former LNC Chair, Addresses 2003 MO LP Convention

Dr. Jim Lark, Libertarian Party national chair from 2000-2003 summed up the performance of the LP over the last few years at the MO LP 2003 Convention on June 7 in Wentzville. “Considering where we’ve been and where we’re going, we have shot par. We’ve stayed true to out principles and have had a nice amount, if not overwhelming amount of success despite there being no financial angle to have descended upon us”.

Campaign finance laws, he added, have hamstrung us. However, the LP of Tennessee was credited for its efforts that primed the pump and added fuel to the engine that stopped the income tax.

The LP finds itself in an awkward stage of retrenchment. “We’ve demonstrated can now win at the state and local levels”, he noted. But those candidates the party fields typically emphasize “direction” as a means of moving America incrementally toward freedom or “destination” calling for an end of the failed War on Drugs or the abolition of one or more government departments or programs. “Candidate who advocates direction may be embraced more generally by voters but suffer internally more aggressive and impatient LP members”.

Dr. Lark also noted a self-selection bias that adversely affects the party’s performance. “Libertarians generally don’t like politics to begin with”, he noted. “The greatest short term work has always been to get libertarians to join LP. One or two super volunteers are to ones to have kept the LP wagons rolling”.

The LP still faces significant obstacles. Politics in America is a rigged game. Republicans and Democrats write the rules. Campaign finance laws hurt the party, as do signature requirements.

Another factor to contend with is the wasted vote syndrome. Those who voted for Bush saw budgets move from $1.84T, Clinton’s last, in successive years to $1.96T, $2.12T, and now $2.23T, or $450 per month more spending for every family of size 4 in America. “How to overcome that?” Dr. Lark asked, “start winning elections”.

Although Americans profess a preference for freedom, Dr. Lark advises being careful. “Cut my taxes does not mean cut Bill Gate’s taxes, and ‘leave me alone’ does not mean ‘leave the other guy’ alone”. .

The LP can also be involved in issue politics to make a difference. “There has been tremendous progress in the field of ideas”, he noted. In particular, there has been an explosion of ideas of liberty, as well as the track record of the government making things worse.

Politics, Dr. Lark concluded, is a lagging indicator of a myriad of outcomes on the spiritual battlefield and social battlefield. Freedom outlines the set of preferential options available, but politicians limit the field of vision.

There are always more options than what politicians indicate. For example, a datum that suggests seat belts make people safer when they are in a crash. From this should we conclude there should be a law to require wearing seatbelts or mandating manufacturers in Detroit install them? It turns out that belted drivers drive faster more aggressively than unbelted ones which increases the likelihood of accidents to begin with. And driving faster means there are more pedestrians struck. They are part of the system, too.

Dr. Lark is proud to be a Libertarian. In the words of Monty Python he noted, “I’m not only proud of that, I’m smug about it”. He added, “Being at a Libertarian Party state convention, I’m in the presence of heroes”.