Sunday, October 24, 2010

This week we all had the privilege of seeing libertarian chairman of Orange County Bob Booth speak for us and help elucidate various party platforms and its position on the political spectrum. We are all thankful for his visit, and he answered all of our questions honestly and both to his party and his personal beliefs. He demonstrated the interesting libertarian view of a political diamond, showing that liberals and conservatives merely are a different areas of more government participation. Overall, all of his views provided interesting insight into a party that in not well known, and probably misunderstood.
Furthermore, his foreign policy proved to be very agreeable. He proposed an interesting view that "when goods cross borders, troops don't", so he was in favor of maintaining peace and pushing trade with all nations as a way to keep all economies healthy. However, he wanted to eliminate tariffs as well to bolster trade, and he wanted to both decimate the taxes to start a new business and the taxes collected from trade. Thus, this portion of his economic plan seemed slightly idealistic because even if he planned on severely lowering the size of government, taxes will be so limited that even the limited government will receive too little funding so they can protect the people from force and fraud, as is their government plan. This plan would destroy local businesses because people overseas usually produce things much more cheaply. Also, to cut costs, companies here will use as many techniques as possible to create their products as cheaply as possible regardless of the environment because there will be no regulations. This position seems too harmful to both the United States and the world to be supported wholeheartedly.
Both his immigration and drug policies seemed to be idealistic, but potentially remarkable. Immigration was more realistic, and he expressed his feeling that lowering the limitation and obstacles to get inside of the country was necessary so not as many people would enter illegally. This position is very agreeable. However, his drug policy seemed brilliant but impossible to effectively implement. He planned on privatizing drug manufacturing so Mexican drug lords and sellers within the U.S. would not have anybody to sell to. However, these drugs would need extensive testing for their safety, and they would be relatively weak for the addicted users. Thus, they would go back to the dangerous counterparts, so such a plan is not likely to work. It sounds fantastic, and I would support it because it seems like a much safer alternative to all other options, but it seems to lack any realism behind it.
Finally, my absolute biggest complaint against the libertarian view was when Mr. Booth claimed that private industries are better to the environment than the government. This is preposterous because national parks are evidence of the government's effectiveness, and factories billowing smoke into the air show industry's effects. If environment protection became an absolutely private industry, then the biggest profit making industries will take over and horrendously destroy what we have left of the Earth.
Overall, Mr. Booth was an interesting speaker for an interesting party that has as many valid points as it does disagreeable and idealistic plans. If the Libertarian party showed more empathy for the environment and demonstrated a will to compromise on some issues so they don't appear too idealistic, then they would seem to be a very agreeable party and one that could become a true contender in future elections.








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