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Quote of the day: “Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.” — Edmund Burke 
We have Republicans, Democrats, and independents subscribed to this newsletter. But the majority of our supporters are libertarians. This message is mainly for the libertarians, but everyone can gain from it. We’re going to reveal…
The main obstacle to libertarian success
That obstacle is also the main barrier to passing the One Subject at a Time Act (OSTA), or anything else we’re trying to do.
So far as we can tell this “main obstacle” is a secret that only we know. Now you’re about to learn it too. Frankly…
We’re hoping it changes your life.
We hope it impacts you starting today, and every day hereafter, because libertarian success is obtainable through your daily actions. To understand why you must realize that…
Libertarians already have enough support to prevail
That’s right. There are already enough libertarians in America to compete with both the Left and the Right, and perhaps even triumph. Consider…
Millions of Americans already fall in the libertarian sector of Nolan Chart quizzes such as….
- The World’s Smallest Political Quiz, or…
- The Zero Aggression Project’s soon to be released Political Conscience Test
And many tens of millions already self-identify as libertarians…
- A Reuters study found that 1-in-5 Americans describe themselves as libertarians, and have a fairly good understanding of what the word means. That amounts to roughly 64 million people.
Some studies show fewer libertarians and other studies show more. For instance…
- A study by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 7% of the population is “hardcore libertarian,” while another 15% lean libertarian. That amounts to about 22 million people who are “strong libertarians,” and another 48 million who lean that way.
Of course, “hardcore” and “strong” probably don’t mean what we would mean by those words. Most of these people are probably “sector libertarians” (on a Nolan Chart), rather than limited-state libertarians or voluntaryists. But please notice that 22 + 48 = 70 – very close to the 64 million identified by the Reuters study.
By comparison, the number of registered Democrats, Republicans, and independents, all bounce around the 30% mark, and many of the self-identified and sector libertarians described above are among them. In other words…
There are nearly as many libertarians in America as there are liberals and conservatives.
And we’ve achieved this despite the fact that the Left and the Right control our schools and the media. Just imagine…
What might we achieve if we had visibility parity with the Left and the Right?
Libertarians could…
- Make our ideas seen and heard by every American, everyday (this would give us visibility parity with the Left and Right)
- Persuade even more people to become libertarian (visibility parity will empower that result)
- Compete strongly with the 10 to 20-million voters who control the establishment party primaries, thereby electing more people like Ron or Rand Paul, Justin Amash, and Thomas Massie
- Compel Congress to pass legislation such as the One Subject at a Time Act, the Read the Bills Act, and much more
There are enough libertarians to do all of this RIGHT NOW!
So what’s stopping us? And now we arrive at the main obstacle to libertarian success…
Inertia!
That’s all that’s standing in our way. Inertia is the tendency of objects (including people) to do nothing unless acted on by an outside force. We can see just how powerful inertia is by considering our effort to pass the One Subject at a Time Act…
With nearly 20,000 subscribers Downsize DC already has a large enough army to pass OSTA, at least theoretically. That level of support is enough to hit every Congressional office…
- With 50 messages and phone calls every week
- Send 5 different delegations of 10 people each to meet with EVERY local Congressional office
And that would be enough to pass OSTA because…
Rank-and-file members of Congress will benefit from OSTA
OSTA will…
- Make them more powerful in comparison to the leadership
- Make them more popular with their constituents
- Free them from having to vote on measures they hate because the leadership clusters those measures with proposals they can’t afford to oppose
That’s why we believe we could get nearly all the members of Congress to support OSTA, eventually. But we really only need a simple majority to force passage. Unfortunately…
Inertia is preventing this from happening!
Consider…
- From August 14 – 21 we sent three messages calling for action on OSTA.
- One or more of these messages were read by 3,459 of our nearly 20,000 subscribers.
- And of that number, only 487 people sent letters to Congress.
Think about how STRANGE that is!
3,459 people were clearly interested enough in OSTA to open a message about it, but then nearly 3,000 of those people failed to take action! And the action requested was EASY!
Do we really think that 3,000 people who were interested enough to open a message about OSTA suddenly became disinterested, in spite of reading the good news that OSTA has a record 25 Congressional sponsors! That makes no sense. Here’s what does make sense…
It’s always easier to do nothing than it is to do something, even if that something is as easy as sending a message to Congress.
In a word, INERTIA!
So here’s the challenge before us…
- The libertarian movement already has enough latent support to compete and perhaps even triumph
- Downsize DC already has enough latent support to pass the One Subject at a Time Act
But neither thing can be achieved unless we can all figure out how to overcome inertia. But this isn’t our problem alone. It’s your problem too. So here’s what we want to ask you…
Will you be a person who ACTS, and who does so consistently!
Here’s what we need to succeed…
- We need people who will, at a minimum, send every letter we ask them to send, especially about OSTA. That’s not a lot to ask. It’s very easy to do. With our new website you can be done in 30 seconds!
- We’ll need our more extroverted members to make phone calls to Congress, and to join delegations to meet with local Congressional staff when we ask them to.
That’s virtually it. That’s all it will really take to pass OSTA, and do much else besides. And oh yeah…
For extra credit, we’ll point out that if we averaged $1/month, per subscriber in credit card pledges, we’d have enough resources to cause constantly accelerating progress. We can do a lot with a little. Our history proves that.
So what say you?
- Will you be a daily letter sender? Start right now by sending an OSTA letter to Congress.
- If you’re extroverted, will you make phone calls and join delegations when we ask?
- If you’re not currently a donor or monthly pledger will you become one now, for $5 a month or more? You can contribute here.
Great success is possible right now, provided each of us overcomes inertia. Thanks in advance for being an ACTIVE DC Downsizer…
Perry Willis & Jim Babka
Downsize DC