Guest Post by John Stossel
The media obsess about Trump/Biden, but another candidate will be on every state ballot: Libertarian Party nominee Jo Jorgensen.
Dr. Jorgensen, a psychology lecturer at Clemson University, is very different from Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Instead of promising government solutions, she tells people, “You can spend your money better than the politicians.”
I like that. So, she’s the subject of my video this week.
I start with COVID-19. Libertarians are skeptical of government action, but a pandemic may be the rare situation when government should act. People need protection from contagious people. No one wants medical facilities overwhelmed.
When politicians issued lockdown orders, their actions were praised by most media. “There are no libertarians in a pandemic,” smug people said to me.
Jorgensen says that’s nonsense, that COVID-19 became one more excuse for authoritarian politicians to boss people around.
“Is it right for the government to take away tens of millions of jobs? I say no. Young people could be out there and have no more risks than having the flu.”
If government stepped back, she says, the private sector would lead the way. She points out that Walmart required masks be worn in all their stores. “It shows that, yes, we can be adults without government telling us we need to be adults.”
I tell Jorgensen that my former Fox Business colleague Lou Dobbs calls libertarianism “an absurd philosophy.”
“What I think is crazy,” she replies, “is spending a lot more than you take in… having troops in the Middle East, which makes us more at risk, just like we saw with 9/11… crazy is actually having taxpayers pay for the defense of Germany and France.”
Good points. Why does America need to be the whole world’s policeman?
Vice President Biden helped get America into many of its endless wars. President Trump said he’d like to bring our soldiers home, but he hasn’t done much of it.
“Instead of fighting wars and having military bases all over the world,” Jorgensen says, she’d “make America one giant Switzerland, armed and neutral.”
Biden says he would “end gun violence” and that “the Second Amendment is limited.” Jorgensen replies, “we limit gun violence by allowing peaceful citizens to arm themselves.”
Trump taxed imports, claiming America “loses” when we have a trade deficit.
Jorgensen calls that laughably ignorant. “I have a trade deficit with my gas station because I buy gas from them and they buy nothing from me,” says Jorgensen. “It doesn’t matter what one country does.”
Biden says increasing the minimum wage to $15 is “just a start.” Jorgensen quips: “Yeah. A start to minorities not being able to get a rung on the ladder to successful employment.”
Jorgensen opposes Trump’s immigration restrictions.
I push back: “There are billions of poor people all over the world. Some want to come here to freeload.”
Jorgensen replies that welfare programs have rules to prevent freeloading, “Many… have a five-year waiting list.” Also, “if you look at people who have the initiative to come here, they typically have the initiative to work.”
Biden would spend $2 trillion to try to delay climate change. Jorgensen says the free market is the better way. “Wherever there’s big government, there’s more pollution.”
Neither Trump nor Biden wants to stop the war on drugs. Jorgensen believes that (for adults) all drugs should be legal.
I agree with Jorgensen about most things. But people say a vote for a Libertarian candidate is wasted.
In addition, Jorgensen will be accused of taking votes from Trump at a time when “only Trump might stop big government Democrats.” She’ll be accused of taking votes from Biden, when “we need to get this clown (Trump) out of office.”
“We need to get both clowns away from the presidency,” Jorgensen replies.
Jorgensen won’t win, but I hope her campaign inspires some Americans to think about the proper role of government.
Jorgensen is absolutely correct when, at the end of our interview, she says: “We’ve got Washington in everything we do. It’s just causing more problems.”
John Stossel is author of “Give Me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media.” For other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com.
It is my sincere desire to provide readers of this site with the best unbiased information available, and a forum where it can be discussed openly, as our Founders intended. But it is not easy nor inexpensive to do so, especially when those who wish to prevent us from making the truth known, attack us without mercy on all fronts on a daily basis. So each time you visit the site, I would ask that you consider the value that you receive and have received from The Burning Platform and the community of which you are a vital part. I can't do it all alone, and I need your help and support to keep it alive. Please consider contributing an amount commensurate to the value that you receive from this site and community, or even by becoming a sustaining supporter through periodic contributions. [Burning Platform LLC - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal
-----------------------------------------------------
To donate via Stripe, click here.
-----------------------------------------------------
Use promo code ILMF2, and save up to 66% on all MyPillow purchases. (The Burning Platform benefits when you use this promo code.)
A political party in the U.S. will never be built from the top down. The only way Libertarians will be taken seriously is if they can start running AND winning in local elections. Until that time comes the Libertarian vote just siphons off conservative leaning votes, while providing NO value. At heart I’m a Libertarian, and have wished for years that the party would actually get serious. Not gonna happen.
You obviously don’t follow the progress of third parties. There have been elected Libertarians at the local and even state legislative levels for decades now. In many states, Libertarians run in nearly all Congressional races (thus providing theoretical “support” for a presidential candidate) and for most of the state legislative races. The Libertarian party has been in existence since the early 1970s and has had a candidate for president on the ballot in all 50 states many of those years and in enough states to win the Electoral College, for most of that time. The Reform Part was certainly a party built from the top down, but even they did the hard leg work of creating local party affiliates that survived long after Ross was gone. Check out http://www.ballot-access.org for more info on third parties and their activities at the state and local levels along with the conspiracy against them by the two-faced warfare/welfare party.
And I’m not saying the party doesn’t have its own serious problems (I mean Johnson, Weldon, Barr???). I left them after their response to 9-11 and have never looked back. But I at least appreciate and know personally, how hard folks work to provide another option for voters. I once ran for State Senate under their party banner.
The two party system is un-american;
“There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.” ~ John Adams, 2nd President, Letter to Jonathan Jackson (2 October 1780), “The Works of John Adams”, vol 9, p.511.
A Libertarian is someone who wouldn’t have a problem with concentration camps so long as they’re run by private corporations. Welcome to the Facebook, Twitter, YouTube gulag.
Not true.
If by “concentration camp” you mean a facility which imprisons innocent people who have been detained by means of force or fraud, it would violate libertarian priniciples, regardless of whether it was a private, corporate, or government entity.
Also, most libertarians are opposed to the very notion of incorporation, the granting by government, itself a coercive entity, to a commercial entity the legal fiction of personhood for purposes of shielding designated individual owners and leaders of said corporation from the consequences of their actions.
There may be other problems with libertarian thought, given the JQ and the multi-front assault of White people in today’s political and economic climate, but a concentration camp run by a corporation is not one of them.
lars,
we both know hank was slinging crap to make a point–
how many libertarians beliee that facebook,twitter,etc. should be broken up?
A sound libertarian would address the bigger underlying issues like FCC control of the airwaves, Federal Reserve money pumping that enables the growth and monopoly of folks like Facebook, etc., Federal Reserve control of the money exchange process that enables the destruction of competitors through financial embargoes, etc., the monopoly protections provided by government legislation, and so much more. Giving the government MORE power to control these pieces of shit just enables a Biden administration (or worse) the “legal” ability to go after the superior replacements to these folks. Undermining the mechanism that empowered their growth and control of the media, prevents this crap from happening again.
And obviously, no libertarian is in favor of ANY situation in which someone’s freedom is taken away by force, whether privately run or not.
Not addressing the underlying issues and handing government more power (which seems to be the desire of the downvoters) is how we got here in the first place. But hey, I’m sure it will work out perfectly this time around.
I watched a video where she talks negatively about white people. She would open the borders and let millions walk on in. No thanks.
“…talks negatively about white people.”
If true – and most, not all, libertarians I know are racially clueless or willfully ignorant – I would oppose her no matter what her party was.
As regards the invasion across our southern border, I did note that the Lew Rockwell crowd has been opposed to open borders on the basis of property rights.
Personally, I supported candidates Ron Paul and, before him, Harry Browne, because I believed their policies would have worked to the advantage of White people: eliminating ( or phasing out ) all welfare programs, which arguably are the primary attractant for migrants; removing all restrictions to the 2nd Amendment; supporting the right of ranchers and farmers, particularly those along the border, to defend their families and land with lethal force; supporting the right to associate with, or disassociate from, any one individual or group without interference from government; willingness to entertain petitions for peaceful secession; ending the fed; and ceasing all foreign aid, especially to the ME, including Israel.
Well except for that whole Support of BLM thing
https://www.google.com/amp/s/reason.com/2020/08/07/jo-jorgensen-on-black-lives-matter-i-think-we-should-support-the-protesters/%3famp
If you are a Libertarian, you are a very naive and gullible individual. People go into politics and government because they want power.
Believing that a political solution will address the issues at this point is gullible, but supporting the libertarian ideal is all that anyone should ever do. Your stuff is your stuff, mine is mine. You do your thing and I’ll do mine. Your rights end where my person/property begins. Voluntary exchange and cooperation over force and violence. Hardly seems like a bad goal to work towards. Most of our lives is lived with others abiding by exactly this….until government gets involved.