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Title: How Elected Libertarians Are Making the World More Free
Source:
Reason
URL Source: https://reason.com/archives/2018/07 ... ed-libertarians-are-making-the
Published: Jul 14, 2018
Author: Matt Welch
Post Date: 2018-07-16 06:37:42 by Deckard
Keywords: None
Views: 2353
Comments: 13
What exactly do Libertarians do? Wait — don't answer that. As someone who edited a small-l libertarian magazine for eight years, I know all your jokes: Libertarians are the people who lose (or spoil!) elections. They perform aesthetically challenging stripteases on CSPAN, conduct unfortunate personal experiments with colloidal silver. I GET IT. But at least 169 of these exotic creatures also hold elected office across the country, from a broke, 19-year-old college student who sits on the Board of Assessment Appeals in tiny Cromwell, Conn., to the land commissioner for the state of New Mexico. And what these critics of government power are doing once they acquire it may provide a flicker of whimsical hope in these dark and fractious times. Brandon Phinney, a 30-year-old Army vet who found libertarianism through Ron Paul, was elected to the 400-member New Hampshire House of Representatives in 2016 as a Republican. He then switched parties after discovering to his horror that elected GOP officials did not mean what they said about cutting the state budget. "I didn't appreciate, and I'm sure my constituents wouldn't appreciate, that I would vote in favor of a bill that was contrary to what I ran on," Phinney told me last week at the biennial Libertarian Party National Convention, in New Orleans. Ah, youth! Phinney in New Hampshire does something I wish we'd see more of in California: He pores through the ever-expanding state code, looking for laws that are anachronistic, impossible to enforce, and/or just plain wrong. The he tries to remove them. For instance, the Live Free or Die State had on its books for more than a century a prohibition against reusing glass milk-delivery bottles for any other substance besides milk. This bit of dairy industry protectionism wasn't exactly high on inspectors' things-to-fine list, but as Phinney explains, "Anything in a statute that has a financial penalty or a chance to get charged for a crime, it's something that I care about." One of the country's few elected atheists, Phinney has played in a bunch of bands (including one called Godcrusher, because Libertarian), and that experience led to another discovery of legislative arcana: New Hampshire is one of the few states in the union where performers are barred from drinking alcohol on stage. Or I should say were, until Phinney tackled the problem. "It may not be a big, sexy policy change," he said. "But to me, it actually helps the entertainment industry tremendously from not having that enforcement over their heads, not having to worry about the state coming in and screwing with their property." Phinney faces his first reelection with an "L" next to his name this November, which will be an important early indication of whether the L.P. is able to protect, and thus lure more of, its recent converts from the two older parties. Another key party switcher facing electoral challenge this year is Nebraska state Sen. Laura Ebke. Ebke, who transferred from the GOP to the L.P. two years ago over issues of civil liberties, achieved something this spring that libertarians have been talking about forever: occupational licensing reform. Going forward, it won't be so easy for the Cornhusker State to strip business licenses from ex-convicts, impose onerous training requirements instead of periodic inspections, or add new professions to the 172 occupations that currently require the state government's blessing. Like Phinney's bills, Ebke's passed with overwhelming bipartisan — nay, tripartisan — support. "Most of the co-sponsors are Republicans," she told Reason in April, but "the fact that I'm not a Republican allows some of the more liberal members of the body to come and talk to me." Having Libertarians play the honest, respected brokers between Dems and Repubs may seem far-fetched, depending on your operating caricature of libertarians' interpersonal skills. But that's just what Mayor Jeff Hewitt has done in Calimesa. The swing vote on a split city council, Hewitt, a garrulous former swimming pool digger, convinced his small town to tackle one of California's biggest problems: The unsustainability of public sector pensions. Instead of contracting fire services from unwieldy Riverside County, with its top-down engine-staffing rules and defined-benefit pensions, Calimesa under Hewitt's tutelage opted out and created its own tiny fire department, saving taxpayers a bundle. Now Hewitt is running for a spot on the Riverside County Board of Supervisors. He's running neck and neck with Russ Bogh heading into November. The Libertarian Party needs, and is finally getting, some demonstration projects about how to govern better. Getting more Jeff Hewitts in more important positions could transform the little party that couldn't into not just the country's leading third party (which it is already), but also a bloc that can at long last change the behavior of the top two. "The Libertarian Party doesn't need any more principle, doesn't need any more platform — it's got great ideas," Hewitt said. "Now, how do you implement them? We obviously elect officials." This article originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
From occupational licensing reform to legalizing beer-drinking on stage, elected Libertarians are doing some pretty interesting things
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#5. To: Deckard, A K A Stone, misterwhite, GrandIsland, Tooconservative (#0)
You have discovered a lowly never-before-heard-of obscure libertarian who as a nondescript member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives that you believe makes “Makes the World More Free” simply by getting rid of an obscure non-enforced law about reusing milk bottles and now wants to change another law to allow performers to drink alcohol on stage. How can you possibly be so stupid as to post this article to show “How Elected Libertarians Are Making the World More Free?” Then, to cause even greater indignation and disgust...this offensive little POS is an ATHEISTS who did not grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen. (2 Peter 3:18 KJV). Brandon Phinney was elected to the New Hampshire House of Representatives as a Republican. There, he became notable in atheist circles as the only openly atheist Republican legislator in the United States. On June 27, 2017 he announced in a press conference that he had changed his party affiliation to Libertarian. I suppose he switched after he discovered “his” Lord and Saviour, Ron Paul. This article in no way shows “How Elected Libertarians Are Making the World More Free.” What it does further show is how totally insignificant and completely morally bankrupt libertarians are. What you have done in posting this artist is to step in your own shit when you only read the title of this article and then blindly posted it on LF without ever carefully reading the content to prove that Christianity and Libertarianism are incompatible and they will forevermore be. You are without question the biggest doofus anyone could ever find. BTW - To paraphrase General George Patton: “Deckard, you magnificent bastard, you unconsciously did my work for me today.” And I sincerely thank you for this since I probably could not have found a better article to expose how corrupt the libertarianism philosophy is. ROTFLMAO ...
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