[Lnc-business] An example of a successful initiative/cause website

[Scott L.]

Mr. Chair:

 

 

The Libertarian Party is NOT an advocacy organization.  This Libertarian
Party is a political party. 

 

We don't want to be committing bait and switch, do we?

 

Even if "defendyourprivacy.com" was successful in "attracting new members
and support", obviously those "members and support" have evaporated.

 

 

Until we provide the service that the American people expect from an
organization that calls itself a political party, we will continue to lose
members.  And fewer members means less money to achieve our mission.

 

Issue advocacy for a third party is OK  as long as it is done in a way that
directly supports candidates running for winnable or ballot-access retention
offices.  And since the Libertarian Party is not in a position to get its
candidates elected to Federal office right now, that means that issue
advocacy done by the National Libertarian Party is a waste of time unless we
are simultaneously able to show prospective members that we are electing
Libertarians at some level of government.  We don't want to attract people
because they care about an issue with some vague, unspoken promise that we
will directly be able to "fix" that issue.

 

At this point in the LP's life cycle, we should only use issues to attract
people who are going to help us get our candidates elected to public
offices.  And in most cases, the offices that our candidates can get elected
to in 2015-16 are not going to be offices that are able to change the laws
about civil-asset forfeiture or drug possession.

 

Issue advocacy that is done willy-nilly, just because it feels good, will
merely extend the period of time that the Libertarian Party refuses to be a
political party.


  Scott Lieberman

 

 

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"From: Lnc-business [mailto:lnc-business-bounces at hq.lp.org] On Behalf Of
Nicholas Sarwark
Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2015 6:56 AM
To: lnc-business
Subject: [Lnc-business] An example of a successful initiative/cause website

 

All,

 

The Libertarian Party has had previous success in attracting new

members and support from non-members when advocating for policy

change.  Most memorably, the creation of defendyourprivacy.com in 1999

funneled opposition to the FDIC's "Know Your Customer" rules that

resulted in the defeat of bank spying (until the PATRIOT Act at

least).

 

See:
http://web.archive.org/web/19990428064847/http://www.defendyourprivacy.com/

 

Institute for Justice has launched an initiative to end civil asset

forfeiture.  While I'm pretty supportive of IJ generally, both in

their work and in their methods, I wanted to bring this site to the

attention of the rest of the committee as an example of how a campaign

to enact/defeat a policy can be done even if the old parties aren't

supportive of the issue.

 

http://endforfeiture.com/

 

Note, this is not intended to be in lieu of revising and improving our

main web presence.

 

   Nick"

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