VERY Quick Platform Committee Meeting Report ...

... since I am sitting on the floor at the airport awaiting my flight home.

WE DID IT!

Thanks to Jim Fulner pushing a modification of the agenda to get to it, and after several hours of debate, the platform committee passed the one recommendation that I promised all of you I would push for:

3.4 Free Trade and Migration

We support the removal of governmental impediments to free trade. Political freedom and escape from tyranny demand that individuals not be unreasonably constrained by government in the crossing of political boundaries. Economic freedom demands the unrestricted movement of human as well as financial capital across national borders. However, we support control over the entry into our country of foreign nationals who pose a credible threat to security, health or property.

There were several attempts at amending the motion to merely remove that last sentence, and there may be minority reports calling for different and/or additional changes. But as of now, the platform committee WILL be asking the delegates at the 2018 Libertarian National Convention to strike that sentence.

Among other things, we were also able to pass (IIRC) two of Mike Seebecks's proposed style cleanups on material toward the top of the platform (e.g. preamble); and, right before I had to leave for the airport but before the meeting ended, a sex work plank that is not all I had hoped for and that may also get the minority report treatment, that is definitely better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

Yes, it was a long, slow slog of a meeting. Yes, there were some complaints of certain members being dilatory and trying to run out the clock. Frankly, there was a lot less of that than I expected and I prefer to attribute a lot of it to good faith differences on the issues rather than malice. I congratulate our chair, Caryn Ann Harlos, for keeping things on track in spite of the challenges, thank our secretary, Mimi Robson, for her fine work in keeping dueling proposals straight, and thank all of my fellow committee members for their hard work.

Also, thanks to the party members who showed up to assist us, urge us to do right things, etc. As is typical of LP meetings, the hanging out and yakking with each other was the best part. Especially since it meant I got to try out Tim Hortons for the first time (one sentence review: Not bad, but the coffee isn't as good as Starbucks and the donuts aren't as good as Krispy Kreme).