John Stossel: A better president
Share this post:
The media obsess about Trump/Biden, but another candidate will be on every state ballot: Libertarian Party nominee Jo Jorgensen.
Jorgensen, a psychology lecturer at Clemson University, is different from Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Instead of promising government solutions, she tells people, “You can spend your money better than the politicians.”
I like that.
Let’s start with covid-19. Libertarians are skeptical of government action, but a pandemic may be the rare situation when government should act. People need protection from contagious people. No one wants medical facilities overwhelmed.
When politicians issued lockdown orders, their actions were praised by most media. “There are no libertarians in a pandemic,” smug people said to me.
Jorgensen says that’s nonsense, that covid-19 became one more excuse for authoritarian politicians to boss people around.
“Is it right for the government to take away tens of millions of jobs? I say no. Young people could be out there and have no more risks than having the flu.”
If government stepped back, she says, the private sector would lead the way. She points out that Walmart required masks be worn in all their stores. “It shows that, yes, we can be adults without government telling us we need to be adults.”
I tell Jorgensen that my former Fox Business colleague Lou Dobbs calls libertarianism “an absurd philosophy.”
“What I think is crazy,” she replies, “is spending a lot more than you take in … having troops in the Middle East, which makes us more at risk, just like we saw with 9/11 … crazy is actually having taxpayers pay for the defense of Germany and France.”
Good points. Why does America need to be the whole world’s policeman?
Biden helped get America into many of its endless wars. Trump said he’d like to bring our soldiers home, but he hasn’t done much of it.
“Instead of fighting wars and having military bases all over the world,” Jorgensen says, she’d “make America one giant Switzerland, armed and neutral.”
Trump taxed imports, claiming America “loses” when we have a trade deficit.
Jorgensen calls that laughably ignorant. “I have a trade deficit with my gas station because I buy gas from them and they buy nothing from me,” says Jorgensen. “It doesn’t matter what one country does.”
Biden says increasing the minimum wage to $15 is “just a start.” Jorgensen quips: “Yeah. A start to minorities not being able to get a rung on the ladder to successful employment.”
Jorgensen opposes Trump’s immigration restrictions.
I push back: “There are billions of poor people all over the world. Some want to come here to freeload.”
Jorgensen replies that welfare programs have rules to prevent freeloading, “Many … have a five-year waiting list.” Also, “if you look at people who have the initiative to come here, they typically have the initiative to work.”
Biden would spend $2 trillion to try to delay climate change. Jorgensen says the free market is the better way. “Wherever there’s big government, there’s more pollution.”
I agree with Jorgensen about most things. But people say a vote for a Libertarian candidate is wasted.
In addition, Jorgensen will be accused of taking votes from Trump at a time when “only Trump might stop big government Democrats.” She’ll be accused of taking votes from Biden, when “we need to get this clown (Trump) out of office.”
Jorgensen won’t win, but I hope her campaign inspires some Americans to think about the proper role of government.
Jorgensen is absolutely correct when, at the end of our interview, she says: “We’ve got Washington in everything we do. It’s just causing more problems.”