LP Foreign Policy

UPDATE: There is a platform discussion group at LPplatform-discuss -at- yahoogroups.com

I posted the following to the LP Platform Committee discussion group. It started a good discussion on crafting a new foreign policy plank because the last one got deleted at the Portland convention.

Issue: Around the world, tyrannical governments, dictators, and terrorists murder thousands of innocent people every year and threaten human rights and free trade. These threats may take the form of military, religious, or cultural trends that may adversely affect the freedom we enjoy. Rogue nations are building nuclear weapons. Genocide is happening in Africa. Terrorists, organized in private groups, aided and abetted by tyrannical governments, have declared war on all peaceful people. Pirates attack ships in Southeast Asia, particularly the Malacca Strait. Terrorists increasingly target infrastructure chokepoints including transportation corridors and financial hubs in the nations we trade with. Failed states are breeding grounds for anarchy, fascism, socialism, and dictatorships which threaten free trade, human rights, and peaceful relations.

Principle: Dictatorships, rogue nations, terrorist groups, and other purveyors of fascism forfeit their right to sovereignty by virtue of their actions. Members of civil society, as nations, groups, or individuals, have the right to act against them to change their ways or remove them from power. In any society, one of the basic functions of government is to protect the people’s rights.

A non-interventionist foreign policy is possible only when there are no threats to free trade and human rights from abroad. Those threats include military, terrorists, non-freedom oriented belief systems (communism, socialism, fascism, jihadism), and immigration from failed states.

Diplomatic relations are the primary means of building a non-interventionist foreign policy. Diplomats should express ideals of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness and encourage other nations to achieve these ideals which will help reduce war, genocide, terrorism, and immigration.

Solution/Long Term Vision: A non-interventionist foreign policy is our long term vision. The United States will have diplomatic relations with all free and partly free nations. All people enjoy a full range of choice through democratic governments, civil liberties, human rights and free trade.

What's missing from this is how we get there. That's the transition section and it will be the most difficult part. I would say that the above was reasonably well received by other committee members. Discussion will take place over the next 2 years. While it's likely that the above will not survive intact, I hope that the tone carries through to the final draft.