July 16, 2018

Most libertarians will NOT believe the FACTS in this article

Which is harder, replacing or influencing Congress? Retweet

To replace Congress, you must win a plurality of the vote in a majority of the districts. That’s hard. Even then, there’s no guarantee the people you elect will do what you want. This explains why elections don’t cause much change! By comparison…

It would not take anything like a plurality of the voters in your district to pressure your representatives into sponsoring good legislation.

Said differently…

It will be much easier to change how Congress behaves than to replace Congress at the voting booth.

People have a hard time grasping this. They’re absolutely convinced that the politicians don’t care what they think. But our previous strategy message, about how to legalize marijuana, demonstrated the following things…

  • Congressional offices count the positions taken in electronic messages for the same reason they pay for public opinion polls. They want to know what you think. Writing, calling, and visiting Congress matters! But…
  • Being persistent and louder than the other side matters even more. The anti-immigrant movement proves it. They have become politically influential NOT because they represent majority opinion (they don’t), but because they are loud and persistent!

And the politicians have started to buckle to this loud and persistent pressure. Libertarians must become loud enough that Congress feels it cannot afford to ignore us. That’s what Downsize DC wants to accomplish. We want to amplify your voice. Please realize what the potential is. 

There are vast numbers of INACTIVE libertarians out there, doing nothing.

The public opinion expert Nate Silver argues that about 11% of Americans currently self-describe as libertarians. That amounts to a whopping 33-million Americans!

But that’s actually the most conservative estimate out there. Even Nate Silver thinks there are more libertarians than that, based on the positions people take on the issues. Silver used support or opposition to gay marriage and income redistribution to arrive at the following breakdown…

  • Left (liberal) — 34%
  • Right (conservative) — 28%
  • Libertarian — 22%
  • Hardhat (populist) — 20%

By this measure, the number of libertarians in America would amount to 66-million people!

A previous study by Reason magazine arrived at a similar conclusion back in 2011. They reported the following breakdown…

  • Left (liberal) — 28%
  • Right (conservative) — 28%
  • Libertarian — 24%
  • Communitarian (populist) — 20%

By that measure, the number of libertarians in America would amount to 72-million people!

Still other studies confirm these numbers…

  • A Reuters study found that 1-in-5 Americans currently self-identify as libertarian and have a fairly good understanding of what the word means. That amounts to roughly 64-million people.
  • 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 with libertarian tendencies.

Please notice that 22 + 48 = 70. That’s consistent with the 64 to 72-million identified by the other studies. Decades of experience with people taking Nolan Chart quizzes, such as our own Political Conscience Test, further support the above numbers.

Are these libertarians the same kind of libertarian you are?

Our 59 years of combined experience tells us that these 33 – 72-million libertarians come in three types…

  1. A small government libertarian is anyone who agrees with enough libertarian positions on enough issues to land in the libertarian sector of a Nolan Chart quiz (like our Political Conscience Test). Rand Paul and Gary Johnson are examples of small government libertarians. This category probably makes up the vast majority of the 33-72 million libertarians.
  2. Limited-state libertarians believe that The State and tax-funding should be limited to police, courts, and national defense. We suspect there are hundreds of thousands of this type.
  3. A voluntaryist libertarian believes that all governmental functions can be more morally and effectively provided without a State or taxation. There might be fewer than 20,000 of us.

Here’s the crucial point…

All of these types of libertarians have something to contribute toward moving America in a more libertarian direction.

Specifically, all of these libertarians can and should help pressure Congress to pass libertarian reforms. And the level of potential support becomes even larger when you consider our transpartisan proposals such as the One Subject at a Time Act, the Read the Bills Act, the Write the Laws Act, and others. So…

How do we find and activate the dormant libertarians?

Our $50,000 grant, received from three donors, is the first step. But we will require help from you too. We have set the following objectives…

Will you help us meet these objectives? We’re starting with small concrete goals. We’ll constantly meet these targets and increase the size of these goals. Take, for example, our recruitment targets…

For the third week in a row, we’ve blown-away our goal. Each week, was bigger than the one before.

  • The week before last, we signed-up 127 new DC Downsizers.
  • Last week, we set a goal of 145 new subscribers, but recruited a whopping 228!

We also set goals to…

  • Add $50 in new monthly pledges by July 14. We missed that goal. We received $100 in new pledges.
  • Raise $1,000 in new one-time donations by July 14. We beat that goal, taking in $1,201.

Thank you to all those donors, and welcome to all of you new subscribers. Now, let’s set some new goals…

  • Recruit 235 new subscribers THIS WEEK. That means more people, working alongside you in this Downsize DC Army.
  • Raise $101 in new monthly pledges by July 28.
  • Raise $1,225 in one-time donations by July 28.

You can help us achieve our messages to Congress goal by opening each Dispatch and doing the action item is contains, assuming you agree with the position we take on that issue. Take action now on behalf of our Read the Bills Act.

You can help us reach our fundraising goals by starting a new monthly pledge, increasing an existing one, or by making a one-time donation.

Thanks for being an ACTIVE DC Downsizer,

Jim Babka & Perry Willis
Downsize DC

If your comment is off-topic for this post, please email us at feedback@downsizedc.org

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