Having recently read an article by Benjamin Studebaker, describing why the Libertarian Party is an even worse choice than Trump, I was left wondering why someone was using fear-mongering to promote their side of the political spectrum. Mr. Studebaker pulls a few platform bullet points from the Libertarian Party website and notes how cataclysmic they would be to our society, if they became law.
It’s true, the Libertarian Party platform reads mostly of a list of things government shouldn’t do. By contrast, looking at various agenda items from the Democratic Party website, each element reads as a “here’s how we’re going to make life better for you”. After all, they just want to help us.
No one political party has all the answers. They bring different viewpoints to bear on the issues. Is Obamacare the best solution to solve our healthcare needs? Likely not, but it’s a solution. Is a flat-tax the best solution to our over-engineered tax code? Definitely not, but it’s a start.
The assumption of traditional GOP or Democratic voters is that without government, we’d be throwing rocks and sticks at each other. Traditional Libertarian views is that without government, we’d all be living in some type of utopia. Somewhere in between is an ideal balance.
They want to go back to the bad old days when governments didn’t do anything for anybody and if your sister got sick and you didn’t have the money she died on the street.
No. No, we don’t. Governor Johnson isn’t quite a card-carrying member of the Libertarian Party. We’ll call him a Libertarian-Lite. Looking at his campaign website you’ll see his platform.
Take, for example, the section on education. He doesn’t advocate for tearing down every public school in the country. No, instead, he calls for a dismantling of the department of education. Their failed attempts at programs like No Child Left Behind, and Common Core turned out to be giant money pits that did nothing to improve our educational system.
Institutions like the NHS (in Britain) and the Department of Health and Human Services here in the United States were formed to combat crisis-level situations. The government was protecting it’s people from the domestic threat of poor working conditions and health. 70 years ago, those institutions served a very important function.
“A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.”
― Gerald R. Ford
That’s the funny think about government institutions. They grow. At some point, the functionality of an agency begins to eclipse its charter. Sadly, no politician is elected by taking something away from constituents. Nobody likes being the mean boss, but part of running an efficient and effective organization sometimes means saying ‘no’ to keep things in balance.
So how does all this tie in with the fear-mongering of Clinton supporters (and probably some Trump followers too)? A Libertarian candidate, even ‘Libertarian-Lite’, is antithetical to a politician who sees government as a vehicle for change instead of as a vehicle of empowerment. The sentiment of the Libertarian party scares the crap out of politicians because it will force them to make difficult choices that may limit their political popularity. Not sadly, it would be difficult to be a ‘career politician’ if you had to cut funding, and thus anger some constituents.
America is already great. We don’t need to return to greatness, we simply need to be reminded of what made us great so that we can channel that energy. We also don’t need to be taken care of. We’re a nation of doers, not millions of victims who long to be wards of the state. Don’t be afraid to think outside the Blue or Red box this coming election cycle.
