[502] in libertarians
Re: ACLU and Guns
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Vernon Imrich)
Mon Dec 12 16:10:53 1994
To: damartin@ampere.mit.edu
Cc: libertarians@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 11 Dec 1994 23:33:33 EST."
<9412120433.AA05685@ampere.mit.edu>
Date: Mon, 12 Dec 1994 16:09:04 EST
From: Vernon Imrich <vimrich@MIT.EDU>
|> As far as the ACLU goes, how many members does it have, and
|> who actually determies its policies? If everyone in the Libertarian
|> Party joined the ACLU and then voted in officers who supported a much
|> more libertarian platform....
The ACLU has around 200,000 I think (perhaps 300k?)
The LP has less than 20k paid membership, though usually gets over
2.5 million votes (translates to about .5 - 1 million different voters),
and has close to the hundred thousand area in voter registration if
I recall.
I always get irked by this. I mean, it's only $25 bucks to join
the LP and you get 12 issues of LP News too. We're talking two bucks
a month. I find it very hard to believe that people don't have that
to spend (or even "waste") on politics.
In fact, no matter what you argue about registration pros and cons
(primary voting and so on), being a paid memeber does at least as
much good if not far more than simply registering Libertarian and
you DO NOT have to register Libertarian to be a paid member of the LP.
The press still measures UWSA by paid membership and not party
registration knowing that the latter is difficult given current
third party ballot access laws. Thus an LP with a paid membership of
just a hundred thousand would give $2.5 million to the national
budget and make us far more "watchable" in the eyes of the press.
Current studies show at least a 4% - 9% libertarian group out there
(that's with 9 or 10 different categories, not the four or so on
the Nolan chart we use, so, assume that 4% is the most extreme
or committed of the 15-20% or so in the Nolan libertarian sector).
In any case, 4% of 250 million is 10 million. Just 1/10th of those
deciding to try the LP would make it a real power ($25 million in
funds and 1 million membership would get noticed). That's 1/10
of the most committed core libertarians giving up two bucks a
month. And you can't even argue the "wasted vote" senario since we're
talking membership not actual voting or registration.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Vernon Imrich | market failure, n. The inabilty of the |
| MIT OE, Rm 5-329b | market to recover from a blow by |
| Cambridge, MA 02139 | intervention. (The Exchange) |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
