Ask Libertarian Presidential Candidate Michael Badnarik

Our first interview subject for politics.slashdot.org is the Libertarian Party candidate for US President, Michael Badnarik. You can read his blog to learn more about him. Standard Slashdot interview rules apply: Post your questions today in this discussion. Moderators do your thing. We'll select ~10 questions, and hopefully get answers later this week.

Comments

First Question

[Oculus Habent]

Other than winning, what hopes do you have for the Libertarian Party in the 2004 election?

Re:First Question

[Rei]

I think questions should focus on the party's policy - that's the most important thing, really. For example:

"Much can be said for leaving business choices to businesses. However, in humanity's last big experiments with unregulated commerce (during the industrial revolution), we saw 60 hour work weeks, miniscule pay, inhumane working conditions, child labor, extensive investor fraud, and an appalling divide between the poor and wealthy. Does your party have any plans for trying to prevent such abuses in its quest for corporate deregulation, or is that not something that the government should concern itself with?"

Re:First Question

[Rei]

Or, also:

"While it is certainly true that a flat tax would be easier to calculate, are you concerned with its effect on the poor? More specifically, since the poor benefit more in comparison to their tax burden from government programs funded by this money, it would seem like the primary effect would be to increase the disparity of wealth in America, leaving the poor with even less capital to afford "bootstrapping". As America already has the greatest wealth disparity in the industrialized world, are you not concerned about a decrease in social mobility and the general situation of the poor from such a tax plan?"

Re:First Question

[Golias]

Asking a question like, "do you feel like you even have a chance of winning?" ammounts to pretty much the same thing as asking him, "are you a complete nut-job with no connection to reality?"

The question I want to ask is:

Most small third-parties usually set the bar at getting a 5% result or better in as many states as they can, because in most states that usually means "major party" status, which often comes with some public election finance money that will set them up with a better chance for future elections. Since the Libertarian Party officially rejects the concept of public financing of elections, what are your goals for this election, and what do you hope to gain by reaching them?

Re:First Question

[jadavis]

The main point of Libertarianism is to remove these responsibilities from the United States Federal Government.

We live in a nation of many governments, local, state, and of course one federal government.

Why must retirement be a federal program? Why must healthcare?

It would be easy to judge the effectiveness of these social programs if some states are involved and some not.

I would say that most of the tax dollars should be going to the state, not federal government. The federal government can take care of national defense and that would be the most expensive item at the federal level. Just about everything else should go to the state.

If your state wants a healthcare program, then they can do it. If it fails, other states hopefully won't adopt it. Same with retirement.

Question

[sethadam1]

Regarding our current system, what do you think can be done to encourage people to vote for third party candidates? It seems to me that most people still feel it's a "wasted vote."

Also, editors - great theme!

Re:Question

[celeritas_2]

How about: How can we change the system so people have the choice between multiple canidates and not just two?

Re:Question

[Hard_Code]

To elaborate even further, since in a two party system, there is not effective threat from a third party, the parties can collude against the people while using the other party as the eternal "bogeyman". "Hey, you better vote for us or you'll get screwed even HARDER!" It also tends to divide people on irrelevant and superficial things rather than actual policy. For instance, the parties are mostly culturally divisive. I vote for candidate X because he has a southern twang and you vote for candidate Y because he has a new england accent; because, in fact, their effective policies on a vast variety of things are very similar. Total BULLSHIT craven reasons that just serve to divide and distract the country.

Re:Question

[ghostlibrary]

> In a two-party system you will automatically get two extreme views, left and right, because the two parties have to exaggerate their differences to get as many voters as they can.

Actually, I think we're getting the opposite effect. We're getting 2 candidates pretty close overall, because they fear distancing themselves too much from the middle states.

It's as if they realize all the far-right and far-left will vote along party lines even if a monkey was running, so they focus their campaignins and platforms to convert the swayable middle.

Cynically, both are rich Yale grads who favor big government, albeit in different ways. While their social agendas are very different, that (surprisingly) hasn't been the major focus lately.

As a friend from England said, 'you keep saying you have a liberal and conservative party. We see it as you have a conservative and a more-conservative party.'

Not stating my own party view, just pointing out that parties seem to drift to center.

Re:Question

[Phleg]

This one is fairly easy, I posted my reply to similar sentiments in my weblog not long ago. I'll paste the contents below, to avoid blatant whoring.

As I see it, a vote for a third party carries far more weight than a vote for one of the primary parties. When you vote, for instance, Libertarian, your vote gives them proportionally more media coverage, funding, and ballot access than either of the established parties receive. As recent example, both Greens and Libertarians received enormously disproportional amounts of coverage (the Greens in particular) after the 2000 election. Why? The percentage of their votes, in many states, was well above the margin between the two primary candidates. Most political analysts believed that the Green Party significantly swung the outcome of the 2000 presidential election, and as a result, they gained more media coverage than anyone could have predicted.

Third parties also gain in less inflammatory ways when they receive more votes. It helps them receive campaign funding from the federal government, for one. A few more votes one year, in many cases, will allow the party to run several more candidates the next. All thanks to more funding. Even more importantly, in many states, more votes are the precursor to ballot access, which in turn helps the party concentrate on campaigning rather than petitioning. Today, ballot access is one of the most pressuring obstacles facing third parties; in states like Georgia, only one third party candidate has ever been on the ballot for the United States House of Representatives.

How does this happen? In Georgia, third parties must submit a petition signed by over 5% of the number of registered voters in the district in order to get on the ballot for any office. When the voter roles haven't been purged in a decade, leaving both dead voters and invalidated voters still listed, the true number in many cases exceeds 10%. Even worse, due to gerrymandering, many third parties have no clue about the final geographical layout of districts, until a month or two prior to the petition deadlines. When the district lines are changed again and again, many petition signatures which were once valid are no longer, since the signatory no longer lives within the correct district. I am digressing substantially from my original purpose, but there is plenty to read regarding ballot access, for those who are interested.

Back to the original topic. We've covered voting for third parties, but if you look closely, does it really matter if we have a Republican or a Democrat president? It's a toss-up to how much they will suck, and it's usually irrelevant what party they're from. Bush hasn't been the best president ever, but Clinton was pretty poor, too. And now, it seems like the two parties are converging. Republicans are creating bureaucracy and spending like crazy. Democrats are opposing gay marriage and won't stop the drug war. As far as I'm concerned, it's two heads of the same hydra.

So go ahead, throw away that vote of yours. I insist.

Personal Responsible Corporations?

[FriedTurkey]

How does the Libertarian Party, whose platform is a complete free market economy with personal responsibility, expect the economy to prosper with the recent corporate scandals such as Enron?

Re:Personal Responsible Corporations?

[lucabrasi999]

I think the original poster was thinking more along these lines: Fraud may still be illegal, but under a "perfect" libertarian government, would an entity like the SEC even exist? After all, it is the job of the SEC to regulate the markets. Doesn't that very job contradict the libertarian ideals? If the there isn't an entity regulating the markets, how do you catch the Enron's, the WorldCom's, the CNBC talking heads that are hyping a company that they have money invested in, etc?

Re:Personal Responsible Corporations?

[sdjunky]

"If the there isn't an entity regulating the markets, how do you catch the Enron's, the WorldCom's, the CNBC talking heads that are hyping a company that they have money invested in, etc?"

You mean like they did with Enron and WorldCom? It was the government that was helping to prop Enron up. Although an interesting question I think a better one would be this.

The market is supposed to be moderated by the consumers. How do we give the consumers the knowledge they need to moderate the market intelligently?

Re:Personal Responsible Corporations?

[Marlor]

Similarly, in the Libertarian worldview, why is "Big Government" bad, while "Big Corporations" are fine. Ideally power shouldn't be centralized, but if it is going to be centralized somewhere, shouldn't it be in an institution that is directly accountable to the people, i.e. the Government?

Re:Personal Responsible Corporations?

[thefirelane]

I think the original poster was thinking more along these lines: Fraud may still be illegal, but under a "perfect" libertarian government, would an entity like the SEC even exist? After all, it is the job of the SEC to regulate the markets. Doesn't that very job contradict the libertarian ideals? If the there isn't an entity regulating the markets, how do you catch the Enron's, the WorldCom's, the CNBC talking heads that are hyping a company that they have money invested in, etc?

• 1) Not all government regulation must entirely disappear under Libertarian ideas, this is a grey area... we can debate about where to put the stopping point, but we all agree that the start needs to happen
• 2) Other posters have mentioned that there would be many 'private SECs'... these people apparently don't know much about current corporate auditing as they are describing nearly an identical system
• 3) I would like to show that Enron was caused by government regulation, and would have been stopped if there were less government regulation: Back in the day, rich people invested in stocks. They owned shares of companies that made money. When a company made money, it divided this money among its owners (shareholders) and mailed it to them in the form of dividends. One day some government genius said "Look at this, this is a massive form of income and it is only being used by rich people. Therefore, we can tax this, and only tax the rich people, it is a great new source of income!". This was done, and the tax on dividends went up. Now the rules of the game have changed, so it will not be played the same way as in the past. Under the new system, it is cheaper to sell off shares for a profit. Companies realize they can still distribute the money to their investors, but they do so by buying their own shares with their profits (or just sit on the profits). This causes the outstanding share value to rise, allowing the current share holders to sell the shares and get their money under the less heavily taxed capital gains rate.
  
  The problem now, is that the emphasis is shifted to raising the share price. The share price can be raised through dubious means, which is how Enron happened. If the system were not messed with, Enron could not happen, because if the CEO said "we have just made X billion dollars" investors would then rightly say "ok, fine send me a check". This can not be faked. Investors become the regulators, and they can decide to call back their money (dividends) or re-invest it in the company (by letting them keep it).

are some free trade restrictions necessary?

[toasted_calamari]

Regarding your description of free trade vs. state corporatism at your website, How can we prevent the propagation of Multinational corporations without resorting to government regulation? Is that form of Government regulation a necessary evil, or is there a method for preventing the formation of huge multinationals and monopolies without the government restricting free trade? If so, how would this method be implemented?

Where are we headed?

[QuantumRiff]

Where do you see America in 5/10/15 years under its current leadership? Where do you see America in the same timeframe with you as the president? What broad steps will you take to get us there?

Why should I waste my vote on you.

[nlinecomputers]

I tend to hold a Libertarian point of view but you have NO chance of ever being elected President. Aren't there more viable methods to get your viewpoint heard such as PACs or lobbyists?

Re:Why should I waste my vote on you.

[Rei]

My biggest problem with the libertarian stance is this: while it is certainly possible for the poor to go to college, and it is certainly possible for the poor to start a business, it isn't likely. In fact, statistically it is very unlikely. All people are unfortunately not created equal from birth, and that greatly affects their chances of ending up educated and wealthy.

My question to Badnarik is this: Since it, in general, takes money to make money, doesn't this imply that the poor are going to be severely disadvantaged by their birth? If the Libertarian party wants people's success in life to be due to their own wits and hard work, shouldn't it be supporting a free education, and supporting the estate tax? Otherwise, it seems to be just a way to allow "freeloading" - i.e., if your parents were wealthy, odds are you'll be wealthy too, whether you work hard or not.

Regulation

[Anonymous Coward]

Mr. Badnarik, as president, would you support breaking up monopolies such as Microsoft to enable competition?

Thank you.

In my experience

[iamdrscience]

In my experience, a lot of what the libertarian platform stands for makes a lot of sense and I whole-heartedly agree with. The problem is, the parts that I don't agree with seem absolutely batshit insane (i.e. privatizing sidewalks? WTF?). So my question is basically, do I find myself agreeing with you because I'm a little crazy or disagreeing with you because you're a little crazy.

Induce our vote

[tod_miller]

What are you views and hopes for privacy and security for the citizens of the internet age, and how do you proactively aim to safegaurd and give back our rights that have been eroded away. (INDUCE act, PATRIOT act, et al)

PATRIOT act

[keiferb]

What's your view on the Patriot act? What, if any, parts do you think need to be changed, and why?

You know you can't win

[ellem]

I have voeted Libertarian the last 3 elections but this year the stakes are too high. You know you can't win. Have you considered "Deaning" your supporters and asking them to vote for Bush or Kerry depending on who you think should be President (besides yourself)?

What happens to people who fall between the cracks

[zzyzx]

The downside of removing the safety net is that there will be people who don't have the skills needed to succeed; we can't all be the best at what we do after all. Any system has winners and losers. What is your plan for the losers under your system? Charities only do so much after all.

odd background for a presidential candidate.

[Eric Seppanen]

Some background information: Dark Horse on the Third Ballot

Badnarik believes that the federal income tax has no legal authority and that people are justified in refusing to file a tax return until such time as the IRS provides them with an explanation of its authority to collect the tax. He hadn't filed income tax returns for several years. He moved from California to Texas because of Texas' more liberal gun laws, but he refused to obtain a Texas driver's license because the state requires drivers to provide their fingerprints and Social Security numbers. He has been ticketed several times for driving without a license; sometimes he has gotten off for various technical legal reasons, but on three occasions he has been convicted and paid a fine. He also refused to use postal ZIP codes, seeing them as "federal territories."

...He proposed that convicted felons serve the first month of their sentence in bed so that their muscles would atrophy and they'd be less trouble for prison guards and to blow up the U.N. building on the eighth day of his administration, after giving the building's occupants a chance to evacuate.

Re:odd background for a presidential candidate.

[Peyna]

U.S. Constitution, Article I Section 8:

"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;"

Is that a good enough explanation?

Reaffirming the Constitution

[pegr]

Given the current political climate of entitlement, pork-barrel spending, and district vote-buying, how can we get this country back into compliance with the spirit and letter of the Constitution?

Are you a PATRIOT fan? No, not football

[Triumph The Insult C]

Mr. Badnarik, a two-parter if I may ...
1. If elected, what stance would you take on the PATRIOT Act, DMCA, and INDUCE?

2. Would you do anything to try and reduce the influence of nutjob organizations (Fellowship, C-Street Center, etc) in federal politics? For that matter, would you do anything to return Washington to citizens and take it away from lobbyists/corporations?

purpose?

[mikeee]

The structure of the US voting system is such that two major parties appear to be the only stable political alignment (though on a couple of occasions, one of the major parties has imploded and been replaced).

Given this, why is a 3rd (4th/5th) party a good use of political resources, rather than explicitly trying to shift one or both of the major parties toward your viewpoint?

How can you even begin to be viable

[discovercomics]

How can you even begin to be a viable choice if you don't have candidates across the board in a majority of electorial races. Even if your positions are fantastic on the issues without at least a glimmer of support from the congress you are dead in the water.

Q: How would you be able to lead and govern effectively when you would very little support from the congress?

Howard Stern

[ellem]

Howard ran for New York Govener under your party's name. What do you think about:

Howard's fight with the current FCC

Howard's hard turn Left

Howard Stern being your FCC Commissioner.

How do you enforce rights in an ownership society?

[zzyzx]

As we've learned over the past few decades, free speech only applies to public property. Private owners can evict anyone they want for whatever reason. If there is no public property, how are free speech rights protected? Would there be any free speech rights at all in a Libertarian world for people who aren't well off enough to buy property?

How about...

[gfxguy]

Could you explain your belief that the United States is to blame for 9/11?

War on Iraq and other dictatorships

[philipdl71]

Do you believe that the U.S. Government has the right to invade countries run by dictators like Saddam Hussein and liberate the people by establishing a free society even if those countries do not threaten the United States?

In a nutshell, how does the libertarian principle of non-initiation of force apply to foreign dictators? Who or what has the right to unseat these dictators?

2 questions

[WindBourne]

1. Via a presidential order, GWB allowed past presidents to hide anything that they wanted by declaring it national security. Will you lift this order and restore our right to know what our past presidents have done?
2. Is your priority to balance the budget first and then cut taxes, or is to cut taxes followed by balancing the budget, the same way that Reagan and GWB has done?

Morality

[Anonymous Coward]

I am an ill-fitting member of one of the two dominant political parties. I have been interested in the past in libertarian ideals and thoughts and did some amount of research.

My understanding is that libertarians have a belief system where individual are free from regulation and rules.

This seems like a great way to live until I start running some of the possible scenarios and consequences to my family, specifcally my children.

What sorts of regulations and rules if any do libertarians believe are necessary to prevent the descent into "survival of the fittest"?

Federal Regulators.

[Irvu]

I have seen several of your posters that include, among other things, the following bullet point: "Every Federal Regulator that we fire produces 150 new jobs, enough to re-hire all of those federal regulators and the able-bodied poor."

What I wanted to know is, how does that work exactlly. If I were to say fire a building safety inspector, an Air Traffic controller, or an inspector with the FDA how would that produce jobs? And, how would we guarantee that no adverse effect (salmopnella in the food) would result?

320.5

[sudotcsh]

Do you find you have problems keeping the whole Dewey Decimal system straight? What do you think about their licensing fees?

Pardon me - hold on a second.

What?

Oh. Libertarian. My bad.

timing

[j1mmy]

I fully support the Libertarian platform and ideals and I have every intention of voting for you in November. My only beef with the libertarian approach is timing. You've stated that in your first couple months of holding office you'll eliminate the federal reserve, kick the U.N. out of the country, and bring as many of our troops home as possible, among other radical (but good) changes. My question is this: how do you plan to handle the societal impact of these changes? Eliminating the federal reserve is not something I'd expect to go over lightly in the financial markets, for example. Much of the Libertarian platform is a severe departure from the current state of the nation -- I feel that society would need time to adapt to these changes.

Intellectual Property

[geoff313]

As the offical Libertarian party cadidate for president, where do you stand on the issue of intellectual property? Should it be considered the same as traditional property, or should IP be not subjected to the same protections that physical property is? And do you feel that your personal views on the subject reflect the views of the majority of the party itself, or is this an issue that has the potential to polarize your party much the same way that abortion does for the Democrats and Republicans?

Why?

[DAldredge]

Why are you for unlimited immigration with no caps and no requirments?

The Environment

[Sotogonesu]

Mr. Badnarik, I see that the Environment didn't make your web site's issues list. If elected, what would you do to help preserve the planet?

Intelectual Property Laws

[scorp1us]

I have scowered lp.org for the answer to this, but could not as it is not on the platform.

Libertarians aim to preserve personal liberty above all else. This would indicate that IP is not belived in, yet I think the party realized the nessesity for "securing for limited times [exclusive rights]" whether it be art or invention.

How would the LP shape IP in order to "advance the process of the arts and sciences", while balancing peronal liberties?

Copyrights

[HolyCoitus]

Having watched your constitution class and having kept up with your blog, I'm aware of where you stand on most issues. However, I don't believe you've taken a stand on copyrights and how you see them effecting technology and society. Do you view copyrights as an inherent right given to the person who created the work, or do you see it as a privilege given to those people by the government as a proxy for the people? Many people would say copyright has turned into a weapon for large corporations, established insitutions and people. The constitution grants a limited time protection for copyrights as you know, however the current terms being much greater than the author's life are hardly limited in the scope of insuring future creations by the author.

My question is, then, do you view the current copyright situation as constitutional and correct? If not, then what do you propose to change to weight the situation back towards the common person?

Geeks and Libertarians

[starphish]

Michael,

I notice that when I quiz people on their beliefs on many issues, a large portion of them have views that are in line with the Libertarian Party. It's my belief that many people are Libertarians and don't know it.

Has the Libertarian Party considered spending more money on mainstream advertising to inform people what the party beliefs are? It seems that especially in the geek culture, Libertarian views are very prevalent. Have you thought about a way to target this group?

It would be in the Libertarian Party's best interest to target geeks. Here's why. When we don't like something, we have a great knack to make it seem evil, like say, Microsoft and SCO. This attitude bleeds over to our friends, family, and mainstream media. If we love something, like say, Linux and Google, The opposite effect happens. People seem to trust us when we are for, or against something.

With us geeks, the Libertarian Party has the opportunity to change public perception on how the public views Republicans, Democrats, and Libertarians. We're VERY good at making something seem good or evil.

Any thoughts on this?

I have a question

[rd_syringe]

How do you feel about what the Democrats are doing to Ralph Nader, preventing free choice by blocking him from the ballot because of some insane notion that someone doesn't have the right to run for President if they're not a Democrat or a Republican? Have you had any troubles yourself in this regard?

Pharaphrase the Constitution

[nurb432]

In your own words, what does the constition and its bill of rights mean?

Abbreviated answers are acceptable, but please no 'political-speak'..

After that, what do you have planned to protect what you just have described, and how is that different then the other 2 main candidates plans?

Free State project

[dkleinsc]

Where do you see the the Free State Project in New Hampshire leading, both for your party and for the nation in general?

Respect for our Constitution....

[Senjutsu]

Given that you claim in your biography that you:

"Became interested in the U.S. Constitution in 1983 and began a life-long journey in self-study of this founding document of the country he is so proud to call his home."

how do you reconcile your belief that the federal income tax has no basis in law with the fact that the 16th amendment clearly states: "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration."?

Similarly, you have outlined a plan for confining prisoners to their beds for the first month of their incarcaration, in order to atrophy their muscles, thereby reducing their ability to make trouble. How do you reconcile this proposal with the 8th amenment: "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted"?

Given that these two proposals of yours (among others) seem to stand at odds with the constitution itself, how do you expect the average informed voter to come to any conclusion other than that you have no more respect (and possibly less) for the constitution of this country than the current administration does? Are you in fact another "I'm for the parts of the constitution that I agree with" politician, or do you believe in the authority of the entirity of that document? And if you do agree with it's authority, will you now either renounce these ideas or provide a detailed argument for their compatibility with the constitution as it stands?

Privatizing Education

[EvilJello203]

The Libertarian Party platform advocates separation of education and state. How would you go about reforming the nation's educational system without a massive disruption to a student's schoolwork?

Approval voting?

[j1m 5n0w]

Do you support approval voting or some other non-plurality voting system as a way to allow voters to support less popular candidates without "throwing their vote away"?

-jim

Re:What happens to people who fall between the cra

[ratamacue]

Charities only do so much

Charity only does so much because our means to donate is severely hampered by government -- both financially and psychologically. Did you know that the average US citizen is forced to pay nearly 50% of their yearly earnings to government through federal, state, and local taxes combined? It's no surprise that the typical citizen is unwilling to donate, after government assumes both the means and the responsibility.

I don't know about you, but I'd be a hell of a lot more willing to donate if I wasn't so busy making ends meet on what little of my earnings government "allows" me to keep.

Libertarian Extremism

[MischaLeChatte]

Most members of the public are scared by what is viewed as "extremism" in the Libertarian party. "End the war on drugs" and "Abolish the IRS" are scary changes for many people to make all at once. Why does the party resist pushing a more incremental platform? Why won't the party say things like "In our first term we will legalize marijuana and marijuana only. We will closely study and follow the ramifications of this policy in terms of savings to our military and police forces, crime rates, prison overcrowding, and market factors such as pricing and tax revenues generated. At the end of x number of years we will judge the experiment and debate expanding or restricting other drugs." The party always seems to know where it wants to go, but it is weak in explaining to the people how we will go about getting there.

Re: why the electoral college can be a good thing

[MustardMan]

One thing people seem to forget when they blast the electoral college is how population is distributed in this country. A little googling showed that as of a few years ago, in "developed nations" on average 76+% of the population resided in "urban" areas. Ask yourself, if our presidential elections were based solely on number of votes, what happens when someone campaigns solely for the needs of the urban population and utterly neglects the rural? My guess is, unless the other candidate does the same, he will be pretty much guaranteed a victory. Think about that for a second. If a massive majority of your population fits a certain demographic, your best bet is to appeal solely to that majority. The electoral college, while IMHO fairly broken, does at least guarantee that the votes of large expanses of farm country might have a chance of making a difference. The electoral college helps ensure majority rule with some consideration for minority rights. I don't know that it's the best solution, but I definitely don't believe a flat out majority is the way to go.

How to reform Electoral College?

[code_rage]

There have been proposals to eliminate the electoral college. Notably, Slate has run a series of pieces calling it "America's worst college." Slate's coverage has examined some of the political difficulties in trying to change the system and has proposed some possible solutions.

It's clear from the results of 1992 that the electoral college, as currently implemented at the national and state level, tends to turn small spreads into large ones, and eliminates 3rd parties altogether. As a 3rd party candidate, this must be an important issue to you (after ballot access, perhaps the most important one).

How do you propose to address this? Would you support an amendment to the US Constitution to abolish the Electors in favor of direct popular vote? Or, would it make more sense to address it state by state, using legislation to split the electors proportionately within each state (as Maine and Nebraska do)?

The Bootstrapping Myth: Where's the Compassion?

[bensyverson]

Libertarianism places much emphasis on the theory that individuals can pull themselves up by their bootstraps to success. With good enough education, the theory goes, even the poorest members of our society should be able to become wealthy entrepreneurs. Under this model, if you're impoverished, it's simply because you're not trying hard enough. But bootstrapping is a myth; even if it were possible (for many people it is just not), millions of people do not have the desire to start their own business, and simply want to make a fair and livable wage working their 9-5 job.

Because Libertarianism is even more conservative than Republicanism, impoverished people would be denied many of the resources they need to survive. Libertarians call for the dismantling of welfare, Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, and the reliance on private charities to care for our neediest citizens. Reagan gave us a taste of this logic when he all but dismantled the federal financial aid program for college students. The theory was that the private sector would step up and help our nation's students.

They didn't.

Instead, students and their families often face the burden of massive debt upon graduation, limiting their ability to start building their lives. The Libertarians point out that Americans already contribute over $125 billion to charity already. But Social Security alone contributes $535 billion to our citizens. That much cannot be generated from charitable contributions, even if the tax benefit is increased.

If Libertarians such as yourself had their way, our nation's poor would sink even deeper into poverty and debt while our nation's wealthy would grow wealthier and wealthier. Sure, the rich would donate to private charities to lessen their tax burden--but less "sexy" charities would suffer. Would you rather give money to a charity for mentally disabled homeless people (who now receive Social Security), or to Cancer research?

The role of government is to take care of its citizens, and ensure that we do the right things for society. Private corporations and organizations have no such goals, and cannot be entrusted with such responsibilities. If Libertarians had their way, the government would step back and let people sink or swim. This is short-sighted, cynical and above all, cruel.

Which brings me to my question, Mr. Badnarik: If the government is there to care for its citizens, why do you want to outsource this responsibility to the private sector, which has no real incentive to work for the public good? In short, where is the compassion?

Sincerely, Ben Syverson

Policy Question

[geekpolitico]

How do you respond to this situation?

A paper mill opens upstream from a small town. The mill begins dumping chemicals into the river. As the town's health problems slowly begin to increase, property values begin to drop. Eventually the townspeople are dying young of cancer, birthing children with horrific birth defects, and are too poor to be able to move.

This happens today when we have some sort of regulation. It has been empirically demonstrated that most Americans don't care enough about these issues to substantially alter their buying habits to prevent this from happening. If the government abdicates its regulation role, if we unfetter corporations from laws demanding that they behave within certain norms, if the government doesn't have resources to help these people, should we just turn a blind eye and think of these problems as the cost of doing business. Higher GDP built on the lives of someone else's children?

While it is very clear that the government regulates any number of things, it is not consequently the case that no regulation is a better solution.

Some questions from a progressive libertarian

[creideiki]

If I had to place my ideals under a specific label (though I hate political labels which are often used to avoid thinking about issues), I'd have to say I'm a progressive libertarian.

I'm with Mr. Badnarik 100% on most of his core stances (kudos too for recognizing state's rights in the drug war too). I'm a vehement believer in The Constitution (not that there aren't parts I don't agree with; I'd just prefer we obey it as written OR amend it - not pretend it says something else.) However, I'm curious about your stances on several things.

A stable dollar

You state, "The Constitution delegates the power to coin money to Congress. As your president, I'll insist that they discharge that responsibility instead of fobbing the job off on an external entity like the Fed. And I'll veto legislation for any such operation that doesn't meet the true test of money: It is either made of gold or silver, or can be redeemed for a fixed amount of gold or silver."

I take issue with the last sentence.

Money doesn't need to be redeemable for something in finite supply (in fact, as population increases, that's a bad thing) to be stable, it simply needs to be equally hard to earn. Tying the value of a dollar to a consumer price index or, even better, the population might be wiser.

It is also important to note that The Fed is not the external entity coining money. When banks and other lending institutions practice fractional reserve lending, they reduce the value of the dollar. [An explanation of this phenomenon can be found at http://www.progress.org/reform21.htm]

Would you propose or stand behind legislation to eliminate fractional reserve lending?

The social safety net

Centralized government programs have the net effect of making people less personally responsible. I think a lot of resistance to libertarianism comes from the feeling that they want to cut all the safety nets before something (private charity, LVT, whatever) is in place. Regardless, it would be disastrous to move immediately from a society in which the government has taken responsibility away from citizens to one where everyone is fully responsible for himself or herself.

What are your plans for migrating from one model to the other?

Government funding The Federal Income Tax is clearly constitutional (yeah, I know Ohio wasn't a state until 1953), but it still is a tax on labor, which is deleterious. The same goes for a sales tax. Other ways to fund the valid functions of government include a "head tax" and recovery of the rental value of things such as land, the electromagnetic spectrum, pollution permits, etc.

New Zealand and Australia are experimenting with LVT while Iceland is experimenting with pollition permits and citizen's dividends. I think there is room to be U.S. to be more progressive and foster more equality while adhering to the basic tenets of libertarianism.

What is your plan for funding government while remaining consistent to core libertarian principles?

Intellectual property

Clearly patents and copyrights are government-granted and, therefore privileges but are necessary for a technologically advanced society. It seems that lately things have been getting out of hand leading in part to some of the problems you site as issues (such as the cost of medicine.)

What are your feelings on the current length of intellectual property claims and the veritable "patent mill" that the USPTO has become? How would steer intellectual property back toward the constitutional concept of "for a limited time?"

The Salamander Statement

[McSmiley]

Mr. Badnarik, during your recent visit to Tucson, you are quoted as saying

" Say you want to protect a salamander that's on my land. Well, get your own piece of land, and put the salamander there."

You imply that an ecological system can be subdivided as finely as property, and furthermore that any part of such an ecology has no intrinsic right of its own. Do you truly believe that we can prevent further environmental degredation with the view that what you kill on your property has no bearing on what may live on my property? Or do you believe that there is no value in nature beyond that which we define as capable of being owned?

Paradigm Shift

[Kylow]

As we all know, liberals favor freedom in social issues and control over economic issues while conservatives favor freedom in economic issues and control over social issues. However, increasingly it seems that both liberals and conservatives are tilting toward authoritarianism. Bush has signed into law various entitlement programs, as well as trade tariffs, and Democrats rarely criticize the War on Drugs any longer.

Do you think this shift toward authoritarianism by both major parties will result in a paradigm shift in the country where we no longer discuss liberalism vs. conservatism but rather, authoritarianism vs. libertarianism, and if so, would this allow the Libertarian Party to finally get the recognition it has worked hard for over the past few decades, or are we stuck with this conservatism vs. liberalism battle for ages to come?