Dallas Accord

The Dallas Accord was an implicit agreement made at the 1974 Libertarian National Convention to compromise between the larger minarchist and smaller anarcho-capitalist factions by adopting a platform that explicitly did not say whether it was desirable for the state to exist.

The purpose of the Dallas Accord was to make the Libertarian Party of the United States a "big tent" that would welcome more ideologically diverse groups of people interested in reducing the size of government. Therefore, the 1974 platform focused on statements arguing for getting government out of various activities, and used phrases such as "where governments exist they must not violate the rights of any individual" It was agreed that the topic of anarchism would not even be on the table for discussion until a limited government were achieved.

During the following years the number of anarchists in the party dropped by about half and more conservative-oriented and constitutionalist members joined. During the 2006 Libertarian National Convention delegates deleted a large portion of the very detailed platform. They added the phrase "Government exists to protect the rights of every individual including life, liberty and property." This development has been described as the "Portland Massacre". Some took this as meaning the Dallas Accord was dead. Delegates tried in 2008 to restore the platform, without success. Anarchists do continue to work in the party and run for office, and the activity of the anarchists in the Party is on the upswing with the formalization of the LPRadicals. Anarchist philosophies of no monopolist government still are supported by planks of the party platform, one of which describes the "right to alter or abolish government" and another which states that "Our silence about any other particular government law, regulation, ordinance, directive, edict, control, regulatory agency, activity, or machination should not be construed to imply approval." Additionally, others point out that despite any changing language in the planks, the Dallas Accord is impossible to abrogate without amending the Libertarian Party's Statement of Principles which is required by the Bylaws as part of the Platform as two changes explicitly acknowledging anarchist thought were placed into that document at the 1974 Libertarian Party National Convention.

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