Socialist Party Platform 1928
Socialist Party Platform of 1928
1. "Nationalization of our natural resources, beginning with the coal mines and water sites, particularly at Boulder Dam and Muscle Shoals."
2. "A publicly owned giant power system under which the federal government shall cooperate with the states and municipalities in the distribution of electrical energy to the people at cost."
3. "National ownership and democratic management of railroads and other means of transportation and communication."
4. "An adequate national program for flood control, flood relief, reforestation, irrigation, and reclamation."
5. "Immediate government relief of the unemployed by the extension of all public works and a program of long range planning of public works ... All persons thus employed to be engaged at hours and wages fixed by bona-fide labor unions."
6. "Loans to states and municipalities without interest for the purpose of carrying on public works and the taking of such other measures as will lessen widespread misery."
7. "A system of unemployment insurance."
8. "The nation-wide extension of public employment agencies in cooperation with city federations of labor."
9. "A system of health and accident insurance and of old age pensions as well as unemployment insurance."
10. "Shortening the workday" and "Securing to every worker a rest period of no less than two days in each week."
11. "Enacting of an adequate federal anti-child labor amendment."
12. "Abolition of the brutal exploitation of convicts under the contract system and substitution of a cooperative organization of industries in penitentiaries and workshops for the benefit of convicts and their dependents."
13. "Increase of taxation on high income levels, of corporation taxes and inheritance taxes, the proceeds to be used for old age pensions and other forms of social insurance."
14. "Appropriation by taxation of the annual rental value of all land held for speculation."
This is in the appendix of Milton Friedman's Free to Choose. Friedman pointed out the power of ideas and that while the Socialist Party had few electoral successes in the long run they were the most influential party of the 20th Century. I cannot vote for the lesser evil when it simply slows us down the path to serfdom. There is also a prevailing opinion that you can't work both with the Republicans and the Libertarian or other parties. I am both a Libertarian and a member of the Republican Liberty Caucus "The Ron Paul Republicans". It takes pressure both from within and without to change a parties ideological stance. My hope is to bring back the political ideology of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Barry Goldwater. The Republican Party that nominated John "Screw the 1st Amendment" McCain and his runnning mate Sarah "Tacx the oil companies and mail everyone a check" Palin has strayed far from that ideology. The electoral college system usually means there is no more than a dozen states in play. There is no reason not to vote the Presidential candidate who best represents your views in the rest of the states.
Barry Goldwater:
"I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution or that have failed their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is "needed" before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents "interests", I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can."
I'll vote for a Goldwater Republican for President, otherwise it will be the Libertarian candidate. I live in Texas, it ain't like my vote will effect the election outcome.
"If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals -- if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is."
RONALD REAGAN, Reason Magazine, Jul. 1, 1975
