I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution or that have failed their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is "needed" before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents' "interests," I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can.

More than 40 years after Barry Goldwater ran for President of the United States on the above version of the World's Smallest Political Platform, his party continues to reject that platform in action.

While Goldwater failed of election in 1964, most Republican successes since then -- most especially the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, the "revolution" of 1994, and the election of George W. Bush in 2000 -- have been built on pale reprises of Goldwater's promise. And most Republican failures since then have been a product of failure to follow through on that promise.

Big-government Republicans dominated in Iowa on Thursday, raking in a combined 90% of the votes cast in the GOP's presidential nomnination caucus. The only "Goldwater Republican" on the ballot pulled about 10% of the vote.

Are you a Goldwater Republican?

Has your party abandoned you for the big-government philosophies of Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, John McCain and Rudy Giuliani?

Maybe it's time to consider finding, or founding, a better party: A real smaller-government party with a real smaller-government platform.

Have a look at this consistently smaller-government party and this WSPP-adoptive organization. The Republican Party doesn't deserve your support ... so stop giving it to them.

In The Great Libertarian Offer, 1996 and 2000 Libertarian Party presidential candidate Harry Browne asked:

Would you give up your favorite federal programs if it meant you'd never have to pay income tax again?

It was a great question then, and it remains one now.

I wouldn't dream of trying to claim Harry Browne's endorsement for the World's Smallest Political Platform -- he's not with us any more and thus can't speak for himself on the matter -- but his "Great Libertarian Offer" was an inspiration to me in crafting the WSPP.

Specifically, Harry was an advocate of consistency, both as a matter of principle and as a hard-nosed pragmatic requirement.

He realized that the only way to get something you want is to offer the person who can give you that thing something they want.

In politics, all of us are in a position to give others what they want, and to get what we want from them. The question is whether we want to do so by trading in reciprocal respect for each others' freedom or by trafficking in mutual coercion -- raining blows on others while trying to dodge the punches coming our way.

Harry realized that the only way to build a large coalition dedicated to reducing the size, power and scope of government is to make everyone the same offer: Smaller government, if you'll have it. Smaller not just for you, but for everyone around you. Smaller not just with respect to the programs you don't benefit from, but with respect to the programs you think you do benefit from as well.

The WSPP does not require a patterned, formulaic, "evenly distributed" approach to reducing the size, scope and power of government. The program it drives can be opportunistic, utopian, or anything in between. What it does require of the organizations which adopt it is that those organizations' members keep their eye on the big picture: Always reducing the size, scope and power of government, never increasing the size scope or power of government.

How serious are you about reducing the size, scope and government at the points where it impacts your life? Are you serious enough about it that you're willing to do so at the points where it impacts others' lives as well? If so, then the World's Smallest Political Platform is a tool for working with those others to mutual benefit.

If you're serious about smaller government, join or create a WSPP-adoptive political party, or prevail on your party of choice to adopt the WSPP.

In late May of 2008, the Libertarian Party will hold its biennial national convention. In presidential election years, the highlight of that convention is the nomination of the party's presidential slate. However, the convention will deal with many other matters as well -- among them, the periodic process of considering amendments to its bylaws and platform.

In 2006, the LP's platform changed dramatically. A number of its planks were deleted; others were modified. Much of this took place against a background of conflict between two factions upon which the labels "reformer" and "radical" (or, less accurately, "pragmatist" and "purist") have settled.

The resulting platform seems to have left most of those concerned with it unhappy: The "radicals," because many measures they considered important were deleted and others modified in a "reformer" direction; the "reformers" because the job they set out to do remains unfinished.

This site will eventually be WSPP.info, but not until it's ready. For now, it's "under construction" and wspp.info points at collected posts on my blog about the World's Smallest Political Platform.