Pale, Male and Stale: it’s the axiom used by Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion(DEI) talking heads when they want to demonize something. Rather than pick apart everything I dislike about this context-omitting quip (because I can do that all day), I’ll readily admit that the Libertarian Party does actually have a diversity issue within it’s ranks. In the not too recent past, I’ve spilled some ink on addressing the Porcupine’s pale problem and their male problem. To be honest, these were some relatively easy articles to write, all that was needed was a matter of slightly different marketing.
However, today I’m here to kick out the third leg of the wobbly barstool and address the stale stigma of the Libertarian Party. Much of the information available such as this Pew Research article and this source paint the Libertarian Party as a young man’s game. However, times have shifted in the decade since these studies were published and a lot has changed. As I did in my previous Farming Porcupines articles, I don’t like using the term young people issues because of how limiting-and borderline demeaning-it is. However, for the purposes of this article I’ll stick to issues that mainstream media and social media keeps insistently trying to tell us are young people issues.
One issue front-of-mind for young voters is the looming housing crisis. In case you’ve lived in a bubble the last few years, the United States has seen housing prices go through the roof. Demand has clearly out-stripped supply in most markets, and this current condition will likely persist for the foreseeable future. However, what if I told you that it didn’t need to be this way? Resist me if you’d like, however the Libertarian Party can easily market themselves to young people on this issue. The Porcupines have opposed impractical and restrictive zoning laws for decades. Zoning laws actively prohibit the building of new housing and keeps the market artificially high. If you don’t believe me, just ask Steph Curry (eww…bandwagoners). Repealing these archaic zoning laws would enable the building of new housing and allowing for mixed use zoning will allow for housing to be built closer to schools and retail districts. This is absolutely a solvable problem, if Drunk Uncle Sam stumbles his ass out of the way.
Another hot button issue for young voters is the rising cost of healthcare, and frankly who can blame them? The cost of healthcare is astronomical in this country, as I’ve written about previously. This is an issue, that unlike all of my past Farming Porcupines articles actually does involve the Party to shift their strategy somewhat. The Libertarian Party should advocate for banning employers to pay for health/dental/vision insurance, while also amending the part of the Affordable Care Act that requires citizens to carry insurance. Yes, you read that correctly and yes, I’m serious. I can hear my fellow Porcupines sharpen their pitchforks (just kidding, they’re cocking their shotguns!) amid cries of “Dan, you fake Libertarian, this is government exerting control over a market!”. While I concede that point is true to a certain degree, I offer this solution as a strategy akin to sacrificing one battle in order to win the war.
Let me explain; currently the insurance companies have nearly total control of the market, and thus healthcare is not an actually free market, as those without insurance know all too well. However, by forcing people to pay for the true cost of their health insurance premiums out of pocketwhile not mandating insurance coverage, the number of those without insurance would skyrocket, and that is crucial to the plan. Hospitals, doctors, and the armies of middlemen will no longer be able to count on that juicy guaranteed insurance money and will instead have to appeal directly to the consumer. Essentially, the Libertarians should treat healthcare the same way most of us already treat protection plans for electronics.
Currently, hospitals jockey with other on convenience more than anything else. Hospitals know that, in most cases, they’ll be paid by the insurance companies and thus have no incentive to keep prices down. Since there’s no reason to compete on cost, none of them do. Does this sound familiar? No seriously, does it?
Legally barring employers to pay for health insurance, and then not installing a single-payer healthcare system to take its place will leave every man for himself-and this is a good thing. Caregivers, drug companies, and hospitals will all have to keep costs low enough so that the average American can afford to pay the final bill, or else they run the risk of not being paid at all. For those that think that I’m grasping at straws, we need only look at the market the last twenty years for elective surgeries, such as LASIK or plastic surgery. Without the option of insurance to cover the bill, LASIK prices have dropped to reflect the actual market value, and needless cosmetic surgeries are undertaken only by those who have money to burn. In short, the markets sorted themselves out. My idea for the Libertarian Party is simply to expand this practice for all healthcare services, and then watch prices go down like Enron stock.
Education, specifically the cost of college, is another issue that young voters are passionate about. I’ve written before about student loan debt, and my idea for the Libertarian Party remains the same; get Drunk Uncle Sam out of lending. However, that won’t be enough to cajole young people away from the two entrenched parties, as it doesn’t fix the damaged that Drunk Uncle Sam has already done (who let Drunk Uncle Sam near the table saw unsupervised?). While loan forgiveness is against the party’s stance of personal responsibility, a healthy compromise is capping interest rates at inflation for existing loans. Drunk Uncle Sam is not a profit-seeker and hence has no reason to charge anything above inflation for loan interest. Applying the inflation-only interest rate to existing loans would free up tons of capital for Americans-capital they can use on freer markets!
The Libertarian Party can easily woo young voters to their side by advertising their stance of non-interventionism in foreign wars. For generations, young people have not wanted to die in a war that they didn’t believe in. The Libertarians can lean into this by boasting about their decades-long history of not wanting to get involved in needless forever wars (shoutout to Ron Paul!). The Libertarian Party can score some major social Brownie points by culturally appropriating modern DEI talking points to sell this stance. By packaging this policy as not wanting our armed occupations to disproportionately impact Black and Brown communities (shoutout to John Oliver!) such as Gaza, Yemen, Haiti, and others, the Porcupines can win over young voters in droves.
“Alright Dan, this is your third Farming Porcupines article. You seem to have a lot of ideas, but what are you going to actually do?” a longtime reader of mine (HA! just kidding: those don’t exist!) will ask. That is a tough-but-fair question (my favorite kind!), so allow me to be bold for a moment. There’s the obvious option of voting for Libertarians, and that is absolutely necessary, but not nearly sufficient. I’ll need to get involved by visiting Libertarian rallies and reaching out to Libertarian members of Congress and state legislators with my policy concerns. However, that still isn’t enough, because as Citizens United has proven, money talks, thus donating is necessary. The ultimate call to action, for myself and fellow Porcupine “try-hards”, would be to run for office once the necessary amount of skills and life experience has been gained. Yes, that’s right; I’m currently mulling over spending my grey years pursuing a seat in Congress, thus I’d be able to write the legislation that I’ve spilled so much ink describing. To do that, I’ll need to become a multi-millionaire first, as I’ll need to assume no outside donations.
Wish me luck in 2042…
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