Principles of the Libertarian Party of California

STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLES OF THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY OF CALIFORNIA as adopted in Convention on the Fifteenth of February 1987

STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLES

We, the members of the Libertarian Party, challenge the cult of the omnipotent state and defend the rights of the individual.

We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal rights of others to live in whatever manner they choose.

Governments throughout history have regularly operated on the opposite principle; that the State has the right to dispose of the lives of individuals and the fruits of their labor. Even within the United States, all political parties other than our own grant the government the right to regulate the lives of individuals and seize the fruits of their labor without their consent.

We, on the contrary, deny the right of any government to do these things, and hold that, where governments exist, their sole function is to protect the rights of any individual; namely (1) the right to life -accordingly, we support prohibition of the initiation of physical force against others; (2) the right to liberty of speech and action -accordingly, we oppose all attempts by governments to abridge the freedoms of speech and press, as well as government censorship in any form; and (3) the right to property -accordingly, we oppose all government interference with private property, such as confiscation, nationalization, and eminent domain, and support the prohibition of robbery, trespass and fraud.

Since governments, where they exist, must not violate individual rights, we oppose all interference by government in areas of voluntary and contractual relations among individuals. Individuals should be left free by government to deal with one another as free traders on a free market; and the resultant economic system, the only one compatible with the protection of human rights, is laissez-faire capitalism.