2016 Presidential Election: Libertarian Party

Libertarian_Party.svgAlright, I have played around enough with some of the more ridiculous candidates out there. If you look back at some of those candidates, think about this for a second: they will receive votes. Yes, it may only be 800 votes, but that will be good enough to put them in the Top 20 for President of the United States. That is so hard for me to fathom. Anyways, now it is time to start looking at the real candidates. Today we look at the Libertarian Party and their candidate.

When I think of Libertarians, my first thought is Ron Swanson from Parks & Rec. I should ask my Libertarian friends if they like that depiction. I mean, it does not seem to be poking fun at the party (instead it is more of a complete opposite to Leslie). One of the funnier jokes from the show is when Ron has an elementary school girl visit his office and she is supposed to learn about government. Ron explains the government to her and later the girl’s mother comes in yelling at him because all she wrote for her essay about “how does government work” was “it doesn’t.” I feel like that basically sums up everything you need to know about the LP.

The candidate for this years Presidential Election is Gary Johnson. He finished in third place in 2012 with over one million votes. It is looking like this time around that he could receive significantly more. I have a few friends who are big Libertarians and it seems like every day I see more and more people mentioning voting for Johnson. I really do hope that he is able to get enough support to make his way into the debates. I actually like him and to be honest, could see myself voting for him. We agree about foreign policy and the role/size of our military.

With that being said though, there are some things we disagree about:

-Guns
-Environmental regulations
-Higher taxes on the wealthy

Gary JohnsonThe problem for me is that some of the things that I really care about, just really outweigh the things I agree with. I do find it interesting that many of the Bernie Sanders supporters have now switched to Gary Johnson fans. Aside from foreign policy (and marijuana), they really are very opposite. And yet people gravitate towards Johnson now that Sanders is out of the picture (you get what I mean). I think it is because at the end of the day, both candidates have a similar goal, albeit different strategies to achieve said goal. For some people, that goal is just to shake up the current system and to be honest, it does not matter who it is, as long as it is not a Democrat or Republican.

I realize that I have done a fairly poor job of explaining the Libertarian Party, but without just copying and pasting their platform (which I highly recommend you check out), here is my basic understanding of the LP. The Federal Government is too big and needs to be drastically reduced (not in the way that Republicans say, but actually down in size). If you have any issue, just ask yourself if government should be involved and if you say no, then most likely you are a Libertarian. If you believe that the free market will solve all problems, then you are probably a Libertarian.

Or, you could just let Ron Swanson explain it all…

Author: Ngewo