Through limited goverment & strong personal liberties, the Libertarian Party looks to shake up the current two-party system.
The Libertarian Party is the 3rd largest organized political party in the United States. The party promotes civil liberties, non-interventionism, laissez-faire capitalism and the abolition of the welfare state.
The party was officially formed on December 11, 1971, in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The founding of the party was due to concerns about the Nixon administration, the Vietnam War, conscription, and the end of the gold standard.
Conscription is a law that if the nation is in need of soldiers for a war, it legally requires people to join the army, with penalties if they don’t. Whilst often times there are exceptions (elderly & disabled), this practice was last used on December 7, 1972, but the authority to induct remains available for the federal goverment to use. To see who is eligible for the lottery in the United States, click here.
The gold standard is a monetary system where a country’s currency or paper money has a value directly linked to gold. With the gold standard, countries agreed to convert paper money into a fixed amount of gold. A country that uses the gold standard sets a fixed price for gold and buys and sells gold at that price.
There are 411,250 voters registered as Libertarian in the 27 states that report Libertarian registration statistics and in Washington D.C. According to a 2014 Pew poll, about one-in-ten Americans (11%) describe themselves as libertarian and know what the term means. For the official numbers of registered libertarian voters, click here.
The party generally promotes a classical liberal platform, in contrast to the Democrats’ modern liberalism and progressivism and the Republicans’ conservatism.
“The Libertarian party is more culturally liberal than Democrats, but more fiscally conservative than Republicans,” Gary Johnson, Libertarian candidate in the 2012 and 2016 elections said.
Common ideas that supporters of the party believe in are lowering taxes, abolishing the IRS, decreasing the national debt, allowing people to opt out of Social Security, and eliminating the welfare state, in part by utilizing private charities.
As well as current cultural policy positions include ending the prohibition of illegal drugs, supporting same-sex marriage, ending capital punishment, supporting gun ownership rights, and lowering the drinking age to 18.
For the 2020 election, the Libertarian party nominated Jo Jorgenson & running mate Jeremy “Spike” Cohen. To see Jo Jorgenson’s stances on isses, click here. To see Jo Jorgenson’s official website, click here. To see the official Libertarian party website, click here.