Libertarian Platform Merits Consideration

As the 1996 U.S. presidential campaign enters its final month, the outcome is already a foregone conclusion: The current "big government" bureaucracy that has plagued America for the last 30 years will remain intact -- regardless of which candidate wins.

Indeed, this year's election has seemed less like a contest of two candidates presenting their competing viewpoints than a battle between Clinton and Dole to co-opt the opposing party's platform into his own.

Dole's attempt to include language tolerant of abortion in the Republican platform and Clinton's socially conservative statements regarding a national curfew for minors exemplify the ongoing battle for the moderate voter among Democrats and Republicans. Both parties promise a balanced budget and tax reductions, although neither party has devised a feasible way to do this without increasing the national debt.

But neither party stands for a significant overhaul of the bloated federal government. The Libertarian Party, on the other hand, provides a refreshing and principled option to the two-party system.

Long considered a fringe political organization, the Libertarian Party has slowly built a base of support over the last 25 years and is on the threshold of becoming a mojor political force. Although the Libertarians were denied a role in the 1996 presidential debates by the debates commission, party members -- with the support of such newspapers as The Wall Street Journal -- may soon have the chance to participate.

Led by presidential candidate Harry Browne, a self-made investment consultant with several best-selling books, the Libertarian Party seeks an answer to the Democratic and Republican branches of the "Status Party." Libertarians find their answer in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, documents that guarantee individual freedoms upon which the tax-and-spend governments of the last 30 years have infringed.

The centerpiece of the Libertarian platform is the elimination of the income tax. As many of us have learned from Professor of Government Michael J. Sandel's "Justice" class, the federal government, by taxing a percentage of our wages, essentially owns us for that percentage of the year, depriving us of our Constitutionally guaranteed rights to property. The Constitution allows the federal government to collect only those taxes that support the regulation of trade or a national defense.

Recent administrations have stretched and disregarded the limitations that the Constitution places on the federal government; as a result, we are blessed with the skyrocketing costs of social programs such as welfare and Social Security.

However, the Libertarian influence is slowly taking effect. The recently passed Welfare Reform Bill marks a small step forward, since the federal government is decentralizing its control over welfare, reducing overall spending and granting large blocks of money to states. These reforms will enable states to determine their own welfare policies, which should foster greater individual involvement and better reflect the needs of their constituents. Nevertheless, Libertarians assert that the average American will not experience any tax relief. The money saved by the Welfare Reform Bill will likely go toward another cause, rather than being refunded to the taxpayer.

By abolishing the income tax, Libertarians propose to completely eliminate all federal services and agencies not specifically named in the Constitution. Browne poses the intriguing question, "Would you give up all of your favorite federal programs -- student loans, public broadcasting, farm subsidies -- to be free of the income tax forever?"

Opponents raise the argument that there would be no social safety net -- that the poor, the elderly and the disabled would be neglected under the Libertarian platform. These complaints are valid, as Libertarians believe that the government has no role in administering social programs.

What opponents fail to appreciate is the enormous amount of money that would be injected back into the economy. With 15 to 20 percent more money yearly in the average American's pocket, he or she could decide how much to save for retirement, instead of relying on Social Security, which often returns less money than is paid. Furthermore, this average citizen would have far more money to give to private charities and churches for the less fortunate.

In the current bureaucracy, a significant part of the taxpayer's money goes toward supporting that bureaucracy, rather than directly aiding the needy. Studies have shown that private, non-profit organizations direct a far larger percentage of charitable donations to the needy than does the federal government.

Most importantly, without an income tax, Americans would be keeping more of their hard-earned money and would have more time for their families. President Clinton has called the labor force "a bunch of working fools"; the reason why Americans spend so much time on the job is that it is becoming more and more difficult to realize the American dream within the present "big government" framework. Often, both husband and wife must work full-time, which leaves few quality moments for the family.

Along the same lines, parents would be able to better educate their children with more disposable income. Working-class parents could begin to send their children to private or parochial schools. The voucher system proposed by the Republicans would be far more expensive than the Libertarian proposal and less effective, because public schools with good reputations would soon become overcrowded and sub-standard. By giving more parents the means to provide their children with private educations, public schools would soon improve from more manageable student populations.

The Libertarian Party's fiscal policies make up only half of its two-pronged platform. Libertarians also pledge to return to Americans the civil liberties which they have been long denied, championing the right to free speech and the right to bear arms.

Undeniably, the federal government has placed more and more limitations on speech, especially over the Internet, and gun control, with bans on certain automatic and semi-automatic weapons. While bans on speech have been successfully fought in court, the weapons policy has created a criminal black market which Libertarians would seek to end, by lifting bans for those without a criminal record.

Similarly, Browne supports the legalization of drugs and the elimination of the drinking age. The Libertarian platform acknowledges that the "war on drugs" is becoming increasingly costly to finance, due largely to criminal violence. Browne promises to pardon every convicted non-violent drug user on his first day in office.

Libertarians believe that marijuana smokers -- those who are not a threat to society -- should have a right to privacy. This reflects the over-arching Libertarian social policy: The government should only protect individual citizens from external threats, not from themselves.

Of course, when substance abuse or use of firearms infringes on other people -- through injury or death -- then Libertarians favor severe penalties (lengthy jail sentences, forfeiture of the right to bear arms, etc.). Nevertheless, a firm belief in "individual liberty, self-responsibility and freedom from government" remains the central principle behind the proposed Libertarian economic and social policies.

The greatest problem with the Libertarian philosophy is that by returning to a strict Constitutional interpretation, one must assume that the demographics of the population for which the Constitution was written have remained static. Obviously, this is not the case.

The Christian moral doctrine which in some ways guided the daily decisions of many late-18th-century Americans no longer affects most of America. Our general lack of religion, and the sense of personal responsibility that religion breeds, calls into question the ability of the average American to act responsibly if given increased liberty. Like so many caged animals, we seem to have lost our instinct for personal liberty and have become dependent on our keeper's (read "the government's") handouts and laws.

But long-term economic dependence upon the government is only a symptom of the greater problem -- the feeling of entitlement which big government fosters. Of course, this lack of responsibility is not only a characteristic of the poor. For every impoverished person in America, there is a wealthy counterpart who feels no sense of charity or responsibility toward his fellow citizen.

It is often the fortunate and well-educated who seek to push the law to its limits regardless of ethics. How many times have we all responded to a situation of questionable ethics by saying, "Yeah, but it's perfectly legal"?

A lesser problem with strict interpretation of Constitution is that there are certain policies and programs clearly in our national interest that the authors of the Constitution could not have foreseen. Libertarians seek to cut funding for the space program, which they claim exceeds the legal limits of American government. Similarly, they propose to sell off most of the land in the National Parks System, claiming that the government doesn't have a passable explanation for reserving so much land for public use.

In these cases, Libertarians interpret the Constitution too strictly and at the expense of American interest. Selling the National Park Service to private developers would be an ecological catastrophe, and eliminating NASA, which explores the last great frontier, would be a shame simply in the knowledge we would lose.

Despite its several shortcomings, the Libertarian Party presents a truly appealing philosophy, because they, like the Founding Fathers, invest their faith in the intelligence, good-heartedness and responsibility of the American people to govern themselves. And while the current two-party system offers little hope of significant change, the Libertarians make a cogent case for substantial reform.

Americans have always been know for their ingenuity, their determination and their resiliency. The Libertarian Party offers a platform, which, at the very least, will test the mettle of the American spirit, and, at its utmost, will empower Americans to achieve a new level of prosperity as we enter the next century.