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Thursday, April 27, 2017

The Libertarian Party's Immigration Plank vs. the Dallas Accord

Brief refresher, for which Wikipedia will do:

The Dallas Accord was an implicit agreement made at the 1974 Libertarian National Convention to compromise between the larger minarchist and smaller anarcho-capitalist factions by adopting a platform that explicitly did not say whether it was desirable for the state to exist.

Plank 3.4 of the Libertarian Party's platform:

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.

The text highlighted in red implicitly calls for the continued existence of the state. That's one of the reasons (there are others) it needs to go.

The text highlighted in yellow preserves the ability of minarchists to propose state action vis a vis immigration -- all they have to do is claim that their plans are "reasonable" -- without committing the party to the idea of the state.

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