An Exercise In Reduction
Cutting the fat from the plat.
WARNING: POLITICS FOLLOW
Well. Political platform mummery.
I did this for fun. Keep this in mind. There are nerds, and then there are NERDS…
I got a link to the proposed LP platform changes yesterday, asking for feedback. (Yes, I am a libertarian, and also a Libertarian.) You know what I’ve been using to beat the living snot out of project specs at work? LLMs. So I ran the platform through Claude Opus 4.7, and what did it find?
The platform never resolves whether it is anarchist or minarchist, and individual planks read differently depending on which assumption you bring.
NO! My shocked face. Let me show it to you...
I could not, in good conscience, let that stand. So I told Claude:
Presume a minarchist view (limited government). Prefer deontological language. Clean the damn thing up and compact it, eliminating unnecessary or redundant language.
Yes, I am a minarchist. I don’t think I’ve ever been unclear about that. Still, I’m sure someone will show up and make a comment about the taste of boots.
After Claude did its thang, I took those results and shipped the over to Grok, to have that model critique it and compae it with the original. Then I took Grok’s results and passed it off to a version of Claude Sonnet, telling it to look at both and slice and dice further.
The result? Size cut in half, sentence structure simplified, readability improved, consistency increased across the board. You want to cut the size of government? Start by simplifying your platform. Just saying. The overall changes:
SIZE REDUCTION. The revised platform is 56% shorter — 3,324 words down to 1,458. Nearly half the paragraphs were eliminated (78 → 43, a 45% cut), and the section count stayed essentially the same (34 → 33), meaning the structure was preserved while the padding inside each section was stripped out.
SENTENCE STRUCTURE. Average sentence length dropped from 22.3 words to 11.5 — nearly cut in half. This is the single biggest readability gain. The original was full of compound-complex sentences joined by semicolons and subordinate clauses. The revision states the same positions in short declarative sentences.
READABILITY. The Flesch Reading Ease score rose from 29.7 to 36.3. The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level dropped from 14.7 to 11.1 — roughly from “college junior” to “high school junior.” Still dense, which is appropriate for a political platform, but significantly more accessible. The readability gains came entirely from structural simplification rather than dumbing down vocabulary.
VOICE SHIFT. This is the most dramatic change. From a document that expresses preferences to one that asserts principles. A party platform that says “Government may not” rather than “We oppose” reads as a statement of rights rather than a wish list.
Yeah, this is the kind of thing I do for fun. Which part of “nerd” didn’t you understand? So without further ado, I present you with the (drumroll, please!) new and improved Libertarian Party Platform (Revised).
Share and enjoy!
Or not. You’re an adult, you can make your own choices.
PREAMBLE
We seek a world in which each individual is sovereign over their own life. Government’s sole legitimate function is to secure individual rights against force and fraud; beyond that, people must be free to live, associate, and trade as they choose.
STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLES
Every individual possesses the rights to life, liberty, and property, and may live as they choose so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal rights of others. No right held by one person may impose a positive obligation on another. All relations among individuals must be voluntary. The free market is the only economic order consistent with these rights.
Government exists to protect these rights and may not violate them. Specifically:
Life. No person or government may initiate physical force against another.
Liberty. Government may not abridge freedom of speech, press, conscience, or peaceful action.
Property. Government may not take, nationalize, or interfere with justly acquired property except as restitution for a proven wrong.
1.0 PERSONAL LIBERTY
Each person is free to make their own choices and bears responsibility for the consequences. Rights belong to individuals, not groups.
1.1 Self-Ownership. Each person owns their body and decides what to consume and what risks to accept.
1.2 Expression. Government may not censor or regulate speech, press, or religious practice. Offensive speech is not actionable. Speech is not violence; only literal threats, fraud, incitement to imminent violence, and similar acts that directly violate rights fall outside this protection.
1.3 Privacy. The Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable search and seizure extends to records held by third parties, including digital communications, medical, and library records. Mass surveillance of citizens must end.
1.4 Personal Relationships. Government may not define, license, or restrict personal or sexual relationships among consenting adults. So long as marriage licensing exists, it must be available to all consenting adults on equal terms.
1.5 Parental Rights. Parents and guardians have the right to raise their children according to their own values, subject to the children’s rights against abuse and neglect.
1.6 Age of Majority. A single age of majority must govern all adult rights and responsibilities — voting, jury and military service, contracting, and the purchase of alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and cannabis.
1.7 Crime and Justice. Criminal law must be confined to violations of the rights of others through force, fraud, or deliberate conduct creating imminent and substantial risk of such violation. All victimless offenses — including drug use and gambling — must be repealed. The accused retain full constitutional protections of due process, speedy trial, counsel, jury trial (with juries judging both facts and law), and the presumption of innocence. Prosecutorial overcharging to coerce plea bargains must end. Qualified immunity for officials must be abolished. Restitution to victims, paid by the wrongdoer, is the sole proper aim of criminal justice. The state may not impose the death penalty.
1.8 Self-Defense. The right to keep and bear arms, recognized by the Second Amendment, belongs to every individual and may not be restricted, registered, or monitored by government, except where forfeited by an individual through a proven act of aggression and adjudication of guilt. Property owners set the rules for their own property.
2.0 ECONOMIC LIBERTY
Each person may offer goods and services on the free market. Government’s only economic role is to protect property rights, enforce contracts, and adjudicate disputes.
2.1 Property and Contract. Property is acquired by original appropriation, voluntary transfer, or restitution for a wrong. Owners are free to use, contract over, and dispose of their property. Eminent domain, civil asset forfeiture, price controls (including wage, rent, and interest controls), production mandates, and limits on profits are violations of property rights.
2.2 Environment. Environmental protection requires clear property rights and legal accountability for proven harm. Polluters owe restitution to those they injure. Where property rights in a resource cannot be precisely defined — as with air or migratory wildlife — the burden falls on the party causing harm to demonstrate no rights violation occurred.
2.3 Energy. Government may not subsidize, control, or allocate any form of energy.
2.4 Taxation and Spending. Taxation must be reduced toward voluntary funding of legitimate government functions. We call for repeal of the income tax, abolition of the IRS, elimination of all federal programs not authorized by the Constitution, and an end to conscripting employers as tax collectors. We oppose any tax increase.
2.5 Debt. Government may not bind future generations through debt. We support a Balanced Budget Amendment, achieved by reducing expenditures rather than raising taxes.
2.6 Government Employment. No person may be required to join or fund a union as a condition of government employment. Defined-benefit public pensions must be replaced with defined-contribution plans for new hires; existing contractual obligations must be honored.
2.7 Money and Banking. Banking must be open to free competition. Profits may not be socialized through bailouts, guarantees, or subsidized lending of any kind. Individuals are free to use any mutually agreeable medium as money. Legal tender laws and inflationary monetary policy must end.
2.8 Markets. Government may not subsidize, bail out, or charter businesses, nor compete with private enterprise. Business and state must be separated.
2.9 Licensing. Occupational licensing that conditions the right to work on government permission is illegitimate. Voluntary professional certification is the proper alternative.
2.10 Sex Work. Consenting adults have the right to provide and purchase sexual services. The state may not criminalize these exchanges.
2.11 Labor. Employment terms are matters for private contract. Government may not mandate benefits, compel bargaining, or impose arbitration. Employers and employees are free to organize, or not, as they choose.
2.12 Education. Parents have the right and responsibility to direct their children’s education and to control any funds expended on it. Education is best provided by the free market.
2.13 Health Care. Individuals have the right to choose their own care, providers, treatments, insurance, and end-of-life decisions, and to purchase insurance across state lines. Government may neither mandate nor prohibit voluntary medical treatment, including vaccination. Communicable disease that poses imminent and substantial risk to others is governed by the standard in 1.7.
2.14 Retirement. Retirement is the responsibility of the individual. Social Security must be phased out and transitioned to a private, voluntary system, honoring obligations already incurred.
3.0 SECURING LIBERTY
Government’s only legitimate purpose is to secure individual rights. The principle of non-initiation of force governs relations between governments as it does between persons.
3.1 National Defense. The United States must maintain a military sufficient to defend against aggression, and no larger. Entangling alliances and the role of world policeman must be abandoned. Conscription is illegitimate.
3.2 Civil Liberties in Crisis. Individual rights may not be suspended on grounds of war, epidemic, disaster, or emergency. Intelligence agencies must operate under meaningful oversight and transparency. Government secrecy may not be used to conceal official wrongdoing. Torture and cruel and unusual punishment are prohibited without exception.
3.3 Foreign Policy. Foreign policy must pursue peace and free exchange with all nations and entangling alliances with none. Foreign military and economic aid, tariffs, sanctions, and regime-change operations must end. We affirm the right of all peoples to resist tyranny, and condemn terrorism and violence against the innocent by any actor.
3.4 Trade and Migration. Government impediments to trade and to the peaceful movement of persons across borders must be removed. Restrictions on migration are legitimate only insofar as they exclude those who pose a demonstrable threat to the rights of others.
3.5 Equality Before the Law. Government must treat individuals equally regardless of sex, wealth, ethnicity, creed, national origin, personal habits, political belief, or sexual orientation. Reasonable, narrowly drawn distinctions based on age (as in 1.6) or proven incapacity are permitted. Private associations retain the right to set their own membership and association standards; others retain the right to respond through boycott and free speech.
3.6 Representative Government. The rights to petition and to dissent are inviolable. Government must operate transparently. We support electoral reforms that better reflect the electorate, including proportional representation, ranked or alternative voting systems, and a “none of the above” option. Political parties, as private associations, set their own internal rules. Tax-financed campaign subsidies and restrictions on voluntary campaign contributions must end. Ballot-access barriers, gerrymandering, and the exclusion of alternative parties must be eliminated. Initiative, referendum, recall, and repeal must be preserved.
3.7 Self-Determination. When government becomes destructive of the rights it exists to secure, the people may alter, abolish, or withdraw from it, including by secession. Any successor governance remains bound by the same rights enumerated here.
4.0 OMISSIONS
Where this platform is silent, the principle of non-initiation of force, fraud, and coercion governs. Silence does not imply approval of any law, agency, or government action not addressed.