Are they here at 5 minutes after 12? Noon programming a Minnesota Public Radio supported by Valleyfair family amusement park where season passes are now available. It's entertainment for the whole family in 1996. Harry Brown was the presidential candidate for the libertarian party now retired from his investment newsletter business. He's also the author of numerous Financial books including three New York Times Best Sellers. Most notably how I found freedom in an unfree world brown was the keynote speaker at this year's Minnesota libertarian party convention Brown told the audience. The future of the party is promising and that both the Democratic and Republican parties are self-destructing the Republican.Doesn't have a clue as to what the American people want and it is now becoming a parent to more and more Americans that all the Republican Party stands for like the Democratic party is taking power and using it and that the whole idea is not one iota ideology versus another but rather one team versus another to see who can get the most points on the scoreboard who can get the plum positions who can get into power and reward their friends. It is simply a game a very serious game a very expensive game, but it is like a game to them where the whole idea is to catch your opponent in contradictions have plays upon words get some points on the scoreboard and go out and get drunk and celebrate. That's all it amounts to the the highway bill that the Republicans just passed was 40 billion dollars more than the last 40 billion dollars more than the last Highway bill that was passed it is soLoaded with pork and demonstration project and somebody for something for everybody's District. I mean it is simply Tip O'Neill all over again Newt Gingrich you might as well just call him New Zealand drag or something because there really is no difference but we've known that all alone. What is different now is that other people are realizing it and many of the most important Friends of the Republican Party are recognizing it people like Steven Moore who is written for years and places like National Review American spectator The Weekly Standard, he's always done a lot of work for the Republicans conservative magazines be wailing the fact that the Republicans Republicans have turned out to be no different from the Democrats. He's just one example, it's happening across the board.The opportunities for us is great, but it is not an easy opportunity because we are still a minor small tiny Party On The Fringe of things and we have to change that we have to transform our position so that we are at a point where we can provide a counterbalance all this where we can provide an alternative and that's going to take recruiting people. It's going to take convincing people. It's going to take an effort even more than what we have done to get to this point now.And I'd like to begin by looking at how we approach the world. What is it that we have to sell to other people? And I think the way that we Divine that is to ask what it is that we're doing what it is that we want. So I would like to ask this question. Why is it that you're here tonight? Why is it that you want to be free? Why is it you are in the libertarian party? Tell me why do you want to be free? Can you answer in a sentence or two? And you don't like that I take it. He says the government at all levels just to clarify that I asked and he said no, I don't like that Charles. I know what your answer is. How about you sir? I want to be free to realize my potential man. We need a woman's angle on this. Can you yes ma'am, you would you tell us tell us why you want to be free? Do you want to pass to pierce a woman right here? I'd like to get one woman's viewpoint on this. Yes, ma'am. What is that? Is that supposed to excuse you or? The question is why do you haven't you been paying attention? Why do you want to be free? Because I'm selfish and I like to be free now. It's very interesting those answers number of libertarian convention surround the country in the last 6 to 8 months questions are the answers of all been roughly the same. I want to control my own life. I want to be able to educate my children the way I think they should be educated not the way the bureaucrats think best. I want to spend my own money because I can spend it better than Bill Clinton counter Newt Gingrich or anybody else and I earned it and I deserve it and I should not want to want to make the decision to my life. I want to live up to my potential and so on so I get everywhere. now do you think you're any different from anybody else? Do you think if we were to go out there into the casino and talk to people at random that we would find somebody who doesn't want to control his own life who doesn't want to make the decisions who doesn't want to live up to his potential doesn't want to be able to educate his children by his values rather than some alien bureaucrats. Do you think so everybody wants to be free? Everybody wants to make the decisions in his own life know some people will delegate those decisions to others, but they wanted to whom they're going to delegate them. You could go out and if you don't believe me just go up and say, all right. I'll make your decisions for you. Do you want me to do that? You want me to run your life for you and you will get no answer every time. Freedom is the most natural thing in the world. It is the most natural desire the desire to control one's whole life to be human is to want to be free the philosopher Rene descarte say the card said I think therefore I am and you could just take that a step further and say I am therefore I want to be free. I want to run my own life. It is the most universal or urge along with the the fight for survival and the desire for love the desire to be free. They are all part and parcel of Being Human. the point is that why if we understand so well why we want to be free and if everybody else wants to be free to in one way or another to do whatever he wants to do with his life. Then why is it when we go to people to try to convince them to convert them to get them to join our cause that we start talking about philosophy or natural rights or Austrian economics or anything in the world, except what they're really interested in. Nobody wants to hear your philosophical views on anyting. Nobody cares that you've got a degree in economics or that you read Ludwig von mises and I say that as one who has read a dozen of his books and enjoyed them. The point is that we have the most powerful message in the world. We are going to open people's cages and let them out and yet we are boring them to death talking about things that they don't want to hear about. If you don't think we have a powerful message then just listen to this. This is what we have to say to people. In a Libertarian Society, you will no longer have to pay income tax because a constitutionally limited government will be so small that tariffs and excise tax is already being collected will be more than enough to fund the government. Get a Libertarian Society. No one will force you into a fraudulent retirement scheme like Social Security every dollar you earn will be yours to spend to save to give away as you see fit. Not as Newt Gingrich or Bill Clinton or Teddy. Kennedy thinks is best. You will be able to decide for yourself whom to trust to decide what products are safe or effective or whatever government regulation will no longer run up the price of things you buy no longer hold down the wages. You were no longer keep life-saving medicines out of your reach. In a Libertarian Society your neighborhood will be safe because finally the government will no longer be trying to create black markets criminal black markets and things like drugs and other products and services that some people will buy no matter what their legal status. The nightmare of prohibition will be over in a Libertarian Society. Every one of the Bill of Rights will be honored so that no one can search and seize you or your property without proper due process of law. No one will keep you from owning a gun to protect your family and to make sure that your home is safe. The Bill of Rights will never be compromised in any way whatsoever that again in a foreign war because our government will quit meddling in Affairs where it has no business whatsoever and will focus on defense rather than massive retaliation as an offense. And in a Libertarian Society every dollar you have will be yours to decide you can put your children or private school where they'll be free from the educational bureaucracy. You can pick a school that has the values the education that you want for your child. Not what the politicians think is best for you. This is what we have to sell and it is the most powerful political message in the world. We are offering the set people free. It is the most important thing we could do for them. And that's what we should be focusing on we should be talking to them in terms of what they want and showing them how we are going to help them get it they know the Republicans and the Democrats aren't they know that no matter what they say and Washington they know that no matter what the politicians say when they're running for office the government's just going to get bigger and bigger taxes are going to get worse in the people are going to make more intrusions and their life and in one way or another they're going to feel the pinch of it in the politicians will continue to line their pockets. But we are offering to set them free now. If you really stop and think about it, everybody is a Libertarian. It doesn't mean he realizes it. It doesn't mean that if you ask him, do you support us on this data? The other thing that he'll say yes, but everyone wants to be free everyone wants to control his own life. What we have to do is to start talking to them in terms of that freedom that we are going to get for them. Now. I realize that even when we do that, they're not going to roll over and play dead. There are reasonable objections that people make reasonable stumbling blocks and their minds to just going along with us and saying yes, I'll join you. I'll adopt your program and so forth. I can think of for right off the bat. the first one is Yes, I want to be free. But have you met my neighbor? I'm a responsible individual. I know how to use my freedom responsibly. But my neighbor it's a different story. This guy doesn't want Liberty. He wants license and I couldn't possibly let him be free. Well, I understand that and there are intellectual arguments so we can make against it such as well. The free market rewards virtue government rewards are responsibilities in a free-market property rights are respected government destroys property. Right? So the system we have now almost gives your neighbor a license to annoy you but in a free-market your property would be protected and you would be protected but that really isn't going to make a difference might win an argument with him, but it wouldn't really bring him over to our side. What we have to do is to offer him a benefit. That is so great. So compelling that's going to make such a difference in his life. That he will be willing to risk the possibilities that come with freedom the dangers that come with freedom dangerous as he sees it in his eyes. We have to say that so dramatically that you couldn't possibly want to turn back and go back to where you were before and what is that dramatic change will the clearest signal that we can give that we are going to change things dramatically is the repeal of the income tax to be able to say to people that if you're willing to give up your favorite Federal program, if you're willing to take a chance on your neighbor, if you're willing to do this, you will never have to pay income tax again, you will get an automatic 25-30 50% increase in take-home pay almost over with a Libertarian government. Now that is one reason that we have to have a radical program people are not going to take chances on us. People are not going to give up the party of their fathers. They're not going to Desert the traditional way of doing things unless we're going to make a huge difference in their lives, but we should be focusing up on that difference that we're going to make in their lives not focusing on all the reasons for these things. But focusing on what the benefits are these people, you know, if an engineer goes out to sell his product that he has created. He'll tell you all about the double casings on the outside for Extra Protection the gold-plated connectors inside the fact that the parts inside or welded instead of a bolted together and so forth in your eyes were glazed over and you'll be thinking about something else has he's talking but he says I've got to tell people that I've got to explain how this thing is built. I've got to tell them everything about it so that they'll know that the product is reliable. Don't understand that this is better than all my competitors products. But a Salesman will walk up to the person and say in one sentence almost if anything ever goes wrong with this product just send it back to us and we'll give you your money back. No questions asked no problems whatsoever. He doesn't have to explain all the details people are not interested in reasons. They're interested in results. What is it we're going to do for them. How are we going to change their lives? And if we aren't going to change their lives for the better than we have nothing to sell them if all we have to tell them is how terrible things are in Washington with the federal debt is going to get out of hand and then another 20 years the whole thing is going to explode and so forth and so on people are not going to pay attention and they're not going to listen but once you get their attention by showing them what difference this will make in their lives, then they will shut up and take notice and all the other things that you have to say because you have given them a reason to be interested. Let's go on. Objection number one was I'm afraid of what will happen with other people if they get their freedom so we have to give them something much much better than what they have. Now in order to have them willing to take the chance second possibility is there's something that government needs to do that. It's not doing now and that's why I can't support you maybe government should be putting in tougher immigration laws are doing something to stop abortion or maybe stepping up the war on drugs or whatever it is to try to try to stop the drug trade whatever it is their arguments against these things, but the easiest way to get through to people with this is the simply point out the simple truth. That government doesn't work. government, well if you want to sing along with this you can government doesn't work doesn't deliver the mail on time. It doesn't educate our children properly. It doesn't keep the city safe. Why would you think that the government is going to work any better in this thing that you want the government to do now, you want the government to stop immigration? You could build a Berlin Wall on the Mexican border. You could have a modem mile-wide you could make every employer check the citizenship of everybody who applies for a job. You could make everybody in the country carry an identity card and you still wouldn't stop immigration because government is incapable of achieving anything that it sets out to do you know it and I know it there is an anybody who wouldn't rather spend a day in the most crowded department store at Christmas time rather than spend an hour at the Department of Motor Vehicles. There is anyone who wouldn't rather spend three days at the dentist rather than a then in 1 hour with an IRS auditor. The point is that in their own lives people know that government doesn't work. All we have to do is to extrapolate from that and show them that the same is true elsewhere. You want government to fight abortions? Look what it's done with poverty. The war on the War on Drugs has escalated drug use and greater the worst crime wave since prohibition. You want a war on abortion you get a warrant abortion within 5 years men will be having abortions in America. Same thing you want a war on cloning. You want to Outlaw cloning, you do that and in five years, you'll probably have seven Bill Clinton's and 12. Al Gore's government doesn't work. It's not the answer to anything. Now, you can argue all the statistics about immigration or abortion or whatever. It may be but the fact of the matter is that government isn't the answer. Everybody knows it intuitively even people who work for the government scuse me, especially people who work for the government. The 3rd of Jackson that people may have is similar to that in that they may be getting something already from the government that they don't want to give up and I understand that maybe your son's going through college on a student loan or your mother is on Medicare or maybe you love Opera and you can't stand the thought of no PBS and having to go down to the Blockbuster store and rent videos instead of saying them on PBS whatever it is again, we have to offer people something much more valuable to give it up we can argue that Medicare is ruining the healthcare system in America by running up the price of doctor visits hospital visits health insurance. All these other things you can get into statistics. You can cite studies. You can do all these things but it isn't really going to convince anybody or change their way of thinking about it, even though you might intellectually win the argument What we need again is to offer something. So compelling so dramatic that people wouldn't think of giving up this benefit in the exchange for holding on to the student loan or whatever baby and that's where the great libertarian offer comes in. Would you give up your favorite Federal programs? If it meant you never had to pay income tax again, and this is a question that we need to ask people all over the country. We ran a poll in late in the presidential campaign. We commissioned a poll without explaining in any way whatsoever without asking it without telling anybody that this is what this means and so forth, but just asking the question. Would you give up all of your favorite Federal programs? If it meant you never had to pay income tax again 46% of the people who responded said, yes. Can you imagine if you just had a chance to talk to some of those other 54% of the people I was on a radio show this last week young man calls instead. I don't agree with you. I think government does a lot of good things. I'm going through college on a student loan. I'd never be able to go through college if it weren't for student loans. I could have explained more incidentally that don't you realize that people have been going through college for centuries on loans from their parents on working their way through college on scholarships on all of these other ways long before the federal or government ever got into this young people just like yourself. We're going through college, but that's not going to change anybody's mind. It's not going to bring anybody. You're going to go through college for four years. And then for the next ten years after that, you're going to be paying off the student loan and for the rest of your life, you're going to be paying income tax. Is that really worth it? If you could go through the rest of your life without ever paying a diamond income tax don't you think you could figure out a way to find your way through college now without that student loan and he said well, I guess I guess I could we have talked about you can't out, Santa Claus. What do you mean what we're offering is far far better and I don't mean far far better by our values but by anybody's values far far better then some unreliable political promise that people know is going to be changed. The 4th of jection the people offer to the idea of just joining in with us to help help them be free. Is that well, I agree with most of what you say, but you can't win. And therefore I'm going to vote for somebody who can win like Bob Dole. How I wish when the election was over that all those people that told me that they were voting for Dole because I couldn't win that I could go back and say now do you want to vote again now that you know, whether or not Bob Dole can when they're all sorts of things that can be said about this in first of all, we have to acknowledge that they are right that we cannot win. Now know we haven't and we're not winning now, but we will be sometime very very soon. Things are they are changing dramatically. We have made all sorts of progress in the last 5 years or so in the recognition of Libertarians throughout the country in the media in so many places. I mean, you can't imagine the number of talk show hosts around the country now who are overt announced Libertarians. We have Libertarians members of the libertarian party. Who are talk show host on top rated rated radio stations in New York City and Boston, Philadelphia Baltimore Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Francisco Seattle and probably three or four other major cities that I forgot and major cities plus indicated hosts, like loyal party or Randy Johnson who are the country. We have major radio media stars like Michael Reagan Mary Matalin Oliver North Gil gross Allen Allen Combs, Barry Farber, most of them conservative some of them liberal who give much more than the time of day to Libertarians. Now who have libertarian guess on their show who read libertarian press releases that they like to Their audience it and who discuss libertarian Is with him and label them as libertarian, even though they won't call themselves libertarian. As you know, I'm doubtedly in the last two or three years all sorts of celebrities have been coming out and revealing themselves as Libertarians Kurt Russell Clint Eastwood, Drew Carey, John Larroquette, all these people in the entertainment business and David Brodeur who keeps saying nice things over and over again about Libertarians things are changing today. It's where will be next week and the week after that because it constantly gets better and it gets better all over the country. But even that is not the most important answer to these people. When somebody says to me says you can't win I say, you know, you're right but you can't win either the fact of the matter is that you vote for somebody that may win the election but you won't get what you want. You vote for a republican because you want economic freedom and he goes to Washington and raises the minimum wage and enlarges corporate welfare and has a pork barrel Highway Bill and does all of these other things you didn't get what you wanted either. So you didn't win your vote for a Democrat because you want personal freedom and he goes to Washington and votes to censor the internet for the force you to have a b chip in your television set at home or takes away your right to keep and bear arms or in some other way violates everything you voted for so you can't win either. The important thing is that there is nothing that you or I can do right now to bring freedom overnight. But there is something we can do to bring about freedom in the next 5 to 10 years or so, but there's nothing by the route you're taking now where you will ever get there because as long as you vote for Republicans because they're better than Democrats you are endorsing their actions and they have no reason to change whatsoever so long as your vote for Democrats because they're better than Republicans you are saying I am proud of what you're doing. Now. I reward you for what you're doing now and you don't have to change a thing. So you will never get what you want from them. But with us you have the chance of victory in the next decade or so isn't that better than no chance at all 1996 libertarian party presidential candidate Harry Brown speaking at the convention in April Brown went on to give four reasons why the libertarian party has been unable to win past elections number one. There's something I'm getting from the government now that I don't want to give up will would you give it up if it meant you never had to pay income tax again and incidentally to ever with people say I don't want to give up this program. I understand them completely. Why should they they're being bled to death and taxes. They know that they're getting that the government would not get smaller as a result. The money would just be spent somewhere else government would continue to get bigger and their tax load would be as great as it is now from the government. I wouldn't choose to do that myself, but I can well understand why they choose to do so and it is only when we tell them that we're going to wrap up everything in one giant belt swoop package and repeal all of these programs at one time and simultaneously repeal the income tax. That's not only the only way that we will repeal the income taxes by reducing the size. Government, but it is the only way we will ever reduce government by even $1 by repealing the income tax because until the American people have a motivation to give up with their getting from the government. They will never agree to giving up their own programs. And as long as a few people support any particular program that program will last because the rest of us have no incentive to go to Washington and try to get rid of that program. We have to give the American people gigantic and sent it but I'm getting off the subject. The second reason is that people are afraid of what their neighbors are going to do with freedom or some other group in society and what we have to do again, it's the make the reward so compelling that they're willing to take the risk of what Freedom might do for other people the Third. It's a people think there's something government ought to do that. It isn't doing now into that rather than flooding them with Statistics and studies and so on which is not going to change their emotional attitude towards we need to just simply remind them the government doesn't work and it's not going to shave the thing that you want and forth with regard to the idea that we can't win. No, we're not winning now, but we are the only party that has any hope of winning in the future of by winning. I mean getting what it is that you want in the first place now message to the American people. How are we going to get them to know that we are the ones with the key to unlock the cage and let them out and be free, but I think that Behooves us the focus on three things over the next 10 years really over the next two or three years. And then I hope that from there on it will be almost self-perpetuating. The first thing we have to do is to increase party membership. And there is nothing absolutely nothing that you can think of that would help bring about a Libertarian Revolution or a change in the country or a of changing the course of the government. There's nothing that you might want. There's nothing that you might think that is important that can be facilitated without a larger membership. Until we have the Manpower the resources the connections the talent necessary to make an enormous flash on the national scene. We are always going to be on the fringes. We are always going to be on the outside looking in. We are always going to be just a One-Shot Charlie who gets one interview in the paper for every political campaign, but it's never going to be the object of the presses Scruton to eat when you have a larger membership. You have a larger fundraising base that makes it possible to run major campaigns. We had a $3000000 campaign in 96 roughly $3000000 counting. The money is a brown committee raised. First of all in the early stages plus the money the libertarian party raised explicitly for the presidential campaign and so on. Width at $3000000. We spent in the best way possible and then reflection. There are probably better ways that we better things we could have done. We certainly learned a lot during the course of the campaign the width at $3000000. We were able to get the message here there in somewhere when the campaign was over the libertarian party convention to pole. And ask people to identify the libertarian candidate from a list of about 20 people. How many do you think we're able to identify the libertarian candidate for president? What would you think? Jernigan I told you you shouldn't sit there. Yeah, I didn't think you were listening. How many people do you think could identify the libertarian candidate from the list of 20 people? 50% somebody else want to make a guess I won't call and you just shut up. Yes, sir. What you say? Do I hear six? Actually the actually the figure was 4% It was just barely over. It was just about the random number. In other words that people just took a wild guess and nobody knew and everybody took a guess. You would have wound up with about 4% This is what 3 million dollars will buy. If we had 200,000 members in the year 2000 200,000 suspend disbelief for the moment if we have 200,000 members in the year 2000 we could run a 50 million dollar presidential campaign times. It's not all that much. But again, we have the most powerful political message in the world Democrats and Republicans might spend 250 million dollars a piece but they'll be talkin about the Sims the character sins the contradictions the hypocrisy of their opponents and I'll be talkin about solutions to problems with more than just damage control saying well, we'll stick another government program on top of the all the trouble that's been created by the last government program and so on and then we come along and say we We're going to set you free. You will never have to pay income tax. Again. We will free you from social security and yet make sure that the people who are dependent upon a now will not lose what they are what they are counting on they'll have more reliable promises and they had before with that kind of a message 50 million dollars is the equivalent of at least a hundred million spent by the Republicans Or democrats. That's what you wanted thousand members could do now. Could we get 200,000 members? I think we can I don't know that we will but I think we can the libertarian party for the first time in its history is focus now on recruitment, they are conducting a gigantic recruitment program, which is in two stages in first. The first stage is in the middle of right now the first stages testing mailing list of all kinds of mailing list that contains roughly fifty million names all together and they're testing these lists by mailing to small parts of different lists and trying to identify certain demographic profiles which are more conducive to responses. Well to waves of tests have been completed already. In both of those test, the response was greater than was projected and expected and required in order to make the test payout for a donation in addition to the $25 membership. The donations were higher by a $10 a piece than anything that had been expected. In fact, the expectation was $37 per person and they got back $50 per person. The higher donation means you don't need to get as many responses from a list in order to make it pay it will still in the final analysis be run at a loss. So money had to be raised last year and we raised about a quarter of a million dollars for stage 1 all of the testing but as a result of just what's coming in on the test. The libertarian party now is already up to over 25,000 members and pushing 26 and probably will be at 30,000 by the time of the convention in July. That's a lot. There was thirteen thousand in the party at the beginning of 1996. And this is just stage one. This is not the stage where they are actively pursuing these people to reap the sheaves now in stage one is done. We will have a business plan which we can take to the wealthiest Libertarians in the country people who have been supporting foundations in another libertarian think tanks in organizations, but have not been supporting the libertarian party and go to them and say we have tested this we have seen where we need to go and we know what to do. Now. We need the money. We need to raised $2000000 and at that point, I think that we can get that two million dollars from people like Charles Coker Fred Smith a federal express are people who are supporting Cato or the Heartland Institute or the independent Institute. Are these other organizations? I think we can raise that money once we can show them the results of stage 1 It is very possible. We will have those two hundred thousand members by the year 2020 it I don't promise it. But even if we only got a hundred thousand members, can you imagine how that would transform the dialogue in this country? If we even spent 25 million dollars on the next presidential election and comprable amounts on senatorial Congressional State House races and so on libertarian ideas would be all over the map. The most important thing is that the Press would have to follow us around because we would have the margin of error in campaigns. We would have the margin of Victory between the Democrat and Republican would be represented in the libertarian vote. If they think we're going to get 10% of the vote and they think it's a very close race between the Democrat and Republican very will want to know who's the libertarian taking the boats away from is he getting them from the Democrat of the Republican they're going to have to follow us. They're going to have to cover us they're going to have to report on us. They're going to have to do all of these. Things in order to determine the horse race. I don't care what it is. You think that is necessary. It is going to be increased membership that's going to do it. You're never going to get a celebrity to run for president as a Libertarian unless you have the Manpower in the money to make it possible for him to run a first-class campaign. Why should he otherwise you are never going to be able to get the kind of you want all the way up and down the ticket until you have a large pool of members from which to draw them and that pool of members is going to provide us with talent that we don't have now that's going to provide us with people with business skills to do things that amateurs have to do now because there is nobody else to do a dedicated amateurs who just do the best they can and work maybe 12 hours a day trying to do it but are working so long partly because they don't know how to do this because they don't have the experience to do so everything comes from the increase membership. All right enough about that. What's the second thing we need to do. We need to learn to talk to people in terms of their lives in terms of how what we're suggesting is going to change their lives for the better and not talk about philosophy and economics until they want to know what is behind all of this. How can you do this? How can you make this possible? Why does this work this way? Then you talk about the how does the thing is built in the gold connectors in the double casing in the the welding instead of bolting and all of those things like an engineer would but only after you have their attention get in the habit of using the word you over and over this is what the libertarian program will mean to you. This is how much difference it will make in your take-home pay this you you this will this is how this will change your life for the better. and if we do that Then we have a chance to reach far far more people than we are now. If you're getting resistance from people don't assume that the libertarian message can't be sold. We have what they want. So obviously it can be sold assumed instead that you need to find a better way of presenting the message. Are things like the Constitution important than natural rights and all these things? Of course, they are and of course course they provide a foundation once you understand what's going on and you want to know about those things, but my advice is this if you want to win an argument then appeal to rights and philosophy and economics in the greatest good of the greatest number in the constitution of the founding fathers, if you want to win a convert then appeal to self interest because only when somebody sees that this is going to make a dramatic Improvement in his life. Will he be inspired to want to join us to give up the party of his ancestors to change everything in his life and become a Libertarian not a difference. The third thing we need to do is to raise name recognition for the word libertarian in the libertarian party and you've been doing a lot of that here already. I'm glad to hear the protests over the form billion dollars as I understand it four thousand people showed up the Libertarians here and there were signs saying what the Libertarians wanted. We need to inject the word libertarian over and over if you're going to run for office, there is absolutely no point in doing so I can't imagine any reason for running for office unless you run as a Libertarian and you put the word libertarian in your literature and you use the word libertarian over and over and every speech. This is the libertarian solution to the problem. We want to do this and over and over let people know that what it is. That is so good. It's distinctly libertarian. They'll never get it from the Republicans Or democrats and if we keep telling them over, That it is the libertarian Libertarians want to take back the four billion dollars. Not just we the taxpayers but Libertarians do and somebody sees just happens to get a glimpse of a sign on television where somebody held up and said libertarian say give us back the four billion dollars from the State Surplus and then a couple of days later is driving to the post office at 11 at night to mail income tax return on April 15th. And there are people out there holding up sign saying Libertarians Think You Oughta be able to keep all this money or something a little snappier than that, but I'm sure you can figure Libertarians want to repeal the income tax. So whatever the point is that pretty soon people get the idea. Oh my gosh, it's the Libertarians that are on my side. It's a Libertarian or consistently for what I want Which is less government and more freedom. If you're going to write a letter to the editor to complain about a stadium subsidy or something else. Don't just add one more about to all the other boats that are going to go down the memory hole, but it's the principle that is right that's involved in here and that will make a difference in the reader's life and point out that this is the libertarian way of looking at this over and over use the word libertarian. You're going to give a speech before a church group or someplace else in which politics will be injected any place where you're going to speak. Be sure to say we Libertarians want to do this. It is libertarian. So I want you to have control over your children's education it is To give away as you see fit use the word libertarian frequently and it will have an accumulative effect over and over and not too far into the future then if we appeal to people's self-interest and let them know it is the Libertarians who want to set them free to give them control over their own lives. And if we have the membership necessary to transmit that message far and wide throughout the land. We are then going to have the major breakthrough that we have all dreamed up for so long. And what does that break through mean? Well, let me close just by looking into the future. I am an investment advisor Buy trade 30 years in the investment business. I learned one thing that's all nobody can predict the future which is why I finally decided I better get out of here, but the fact is so I don't want anybody to take does a prediction or a guarantee or a promise. All I'm telling you is what I can see in the future. What I can see is a party of 200,000 Libertarians by the year 2001 a major campaign. Then that will be seen far and wide with a press following our candidate Iran, whoever it turns out to be Whether our candidate gets in the debates or not. We will have the manpower to make sure that every American knows the libertarian message of how their lives will be improved in a Libertarian Society. Will we win the election? Probably not. It'll be too early. We are asking too much for people to just give up everything that they've always believed in and thought about it and the allegiance is that they've had all their lives to ask them to give it up and just one election cycle, but we could easily get 10 or 15% of the vote. And after that the election is over there would be tens of millions of Americans. I promise, you know, I'm not going to promise you anything of millions of Americans who would say to themselves. Wish I had voted libertarian. I didn't realize they would do so. Well, I wish everybody knew that that's what I wanted to and they would resolve to vote libertarian in the future. The party would continue to grow by the year 2002 we would have a half a million members maybe even a million but even with a half a million, we would finally probably elect Libertarians the Congress. I don't know how many maybe 5 or 10 maybe fifty or seventy-five we would have a Libertarian continue then Congress and this was just further the momentum that would inspire people to come and join us and buy the year 2004 we would certainly have a million members and we would run a campaign of a couple of hundred million dollars or more we would be ubiquitous on television. We wouldn't be advertising in political forums. We wouldn't worry that much about C-SPAN. We would be advertising on MTV on Seinfeld or whatever is going to take Seinfeld place in the Super Bowl in places. Where are natural consistency exists that natural confirm. Consistency I meant to say constituency where are natural constituency exist. And what is that those people who are so fed up with politics that they will turn off the political broadcast the moment. Somebody says they're coming on an hour from now these people do not want to see political messages. They don't want to see the Bates. They don't want to see anything. They may not even be back. The largest group of registered of eligible voters in America today is not the Democrats or the Republicans or even the independent. It is the people who don't even vote and if we could reach those people and say we know why you don't vote we know and understand that you have always thought that that nothing is going to change and we agree with you. That's why we have the libertarian Party come join us and we begin to Rally those people to our cause then we not only have a majority. We have a supermajority. so in the year 2004 we run that kind of campaign and elect a Libertarian president and then we can all relax and go to sleep for 3 or 4 hours. We wouldn't have a Libertarian Congress. We probably would have maybe a plurality there. But then the dimmer in the house anyway, the Democrats and Republicans would then combine to make sure that we did not control the house. They probably would merge into one party and call it the wall we want freedom to but now we're just not as radical some catchy title. And of course we wouldn't have the Senate because the Senators only run a third of them every two years and so it takes a while to change control of the Senate. But in any event, we would be in a position where the president could continually proposed think the Congress do the things that I mentioned in why government doesn't work then releasing the non-violence federal prisoners and emptying the prisons of the marijuana smokers and filling it up with the people who belong there but more important is that the president could Beto Beto Vito all the things that Democrats and Republicans send up and then go before the American people and say these people in Congress are trying to stop us from doing what you elected a Libertarian to do and take his message over and over and over again to the American people and then in the year 2006, we would elect a Libertarian house a Libertarian Senate and with a Libertarian president. They could go to work to make the changes necessary and then In the Year 2007 the income tax would be repealed people would be freed from Social Security. The insane War on Drugs would be ended. It would be brought home from 100 countries around the world to see what America is like. Everything would change and it would change rapidly and it would change not only at the federal level it would change at the state level because there would finally be competition among the states and the only way they can compete for the most productive citizens is by reducing government and reducing taxes, you know today the federal income tax is so big and so dominant that very few people move from California to Nevada to escape the state income tax or from Kentucky to Tennessee or from Georgia to Florida just to escape the state income tax, but get rid of the federal income tax and people will be moving and draw drugs to escape those taxes. And when they do the California is going to have to get rid of the income tax in Kentucky and Florida, Georgia and even little ol, Minnesota. Because no welfare states can compete with a free-market next door unless it gets foreign aid and I don't know anybody that's going to give foreign aid to Minnesota the same thing will happen worldwide with the income tax go on here Capital will Flow To America where it's not taxed at the interest or dividends. The capital gains countries will have to do the same thing in order to compete with us. If you want peace in this world. This is the way it's going to come about by reducing governments everywhere. How is it a fantasy? Is that a dream? I don't really think it is. As I said, I don't know that it's going to happen. But I'll tell you this. I'm 64 years old. I've lived a full life. I don't know how many more years I have to go 20 30, maybe 40 if we can get rid of the FDA. The important thing is I would not be here tonight. If I did not believe that there was a good chance we could bring this about I am not interested in devoting my life to politics for the next 20 years. I frankly do not care whether we have a free Society a Libertarian Society a return to traditional America in the year 2050 or 2100. All I care about are the next 10 or 20 years and because I believe it is possible for this for us to turn this around. That's why I'm here tonight. That's why I'm still in the libertarian party. That's why I'm working as I am in the things that I'm doing to try to promote the libertarian party and get those two hundred thousand members and really down deep inside. I think that's why you're here tonight to no matter how it seems at times and no matter how many people tell you that the American people have chosen security over Liberty and give you all these cliche reasons that we can never turn this country around you. Go down deep inside that we can even if you haven't figured out yet how we're going to do it. You know, we can or you wouldn't be here tonight because we're not masochist. We're not self-sacrifice. We're Libertarians and Libertarians don't believe in masochism or self-sacrifice we are here because we know we can do this if we just act intelligently do the right things and work hard enough and that's what we're going to do in 10 years from now, who knows in the Year 2007 America may be a free country again. Thank you very much. 1996 libertarian party presidential candidate Harry Brown addressing this year's State party convention in Minnesota. By the way, the National Convention is in Washington DC July 2nd through the 5th and you can hear Rollins remarks again tonight at 9 in Minnesota public radio programming is supported by the Pillsbury company Foundation caring for the community by giving kids a living loving lift. The NPR June pledge Drive is coming soon, and we need your help to make it work. If you can volunteer some time to answer phones between June 24th and the 30th. Call us now at 612-290-1212. Thanks. You're listening to Minnesota Public Radio. Cloudy skies and 71 degrees of Canada W FM 91.1 Minneapolis and st. Paul expect showers and thunderstorms this afternoon a high of 75 the showers and thunderstorms continue tonight, LOL. 57 tomorrow should be partly cloudy and a high of 78 degrees is one Talk of the Nation is next.