Why A Libertarian is Voting Green

or What an Oxymoron!

I have voted for the Libertarian nominee for US President in every election since 2000. This year, I'm voting for the Green Party candidate, Dr. Jill Stein.

You may think this is completely irrational. Let me provide my rational.

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Decentralization, Liberty, and Efficiency

I am a Libertarian Socialist. In future I will write more about the principles of this little-known form of libertarianism, but for now I'll attempt a brief summary. I believe in small government at the federal level—libertarianism. I don't believe the federal government should limit people's personal decisions or economic opportunities. Strengthening local governments and weakening the federal government limits the reach of lobbyists and corruption.

It is far easier for people to stay watchful of their local officials than national ones. Also, leaders who live in the community they lead are more in touch with what's going on and how their constituents feel about issues. Countries the size of the United States are just far too large and encompass to many varying ideologies to govern efficiently and effectively at that level. More local power also means more experimentation across the country from which everyone can learn. People are now more mobile than they've ever been before. If people find themselves overwhelmingly in the minority, they will move to places they find more agreeable if there's more variation and localized power across the country.

At the same time, I believe in collectively controlled economic activity—socialism. The reason communism and similar philosophies fail is because centralization sucks. It's inefficient and bureaucrats are too far from the activities of local economies to make properly informed decisions. Centralization of authority comes from the idea that people are too stupid to run their lives. I believe that the people dealing in a market are the ones best equipped to make decisions about that market. So, under Libertarian Socialism local communities manage land and its resources. Meanwhile, businesses would be organized as co-ops—owned and managed by its customer-members, employee-members, or both.

^{For a rigorous analysis of the gains proffered by decentralization see Decentralization and Efficiency in Spanish Local Government by Maria Teresa Balaguer-Coll, Diego Prior, and Emili Tortosa-Ausina.}

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International Security Concerns

While neoconservatives and neoliberals do differ in their domestic policies, these differences amount to very little in comparison how greatly their similar foreign policies threaten our very existence. As can be seen since at least the early '90s, both neocons and neolibs have increased "defense" spending they then use to start undeclared wars overseas. These have, unsurprisingly, resulted in blowback—creating new enemies for us to fight—and has chipped away the esteem we have from our allies.

Each of these wars have only ended up benefiting a few groups: military vehicle & arms producers, bankers who loan out the money, energy companies, private contractors—who have prearranged deals—and those with radical ideologies, such as Salafi Muslims. Every profit is someone's loss. So, who are the losers? The American people, who have to pay back the interest on US debt, and the innocent bystanders in these war-torn nations.

Concurrently, the banking policies of global plutocrats have destroyed the US middle & lower-middle class in order to make themselves wealthier and even more powerful. I have a lot to say about this, but in the interest of brevity and with the assumption that this particular audience is fairly well versed on the topic, I'll move on.

Alongside wars disproportionately killing the poor—both US and foreign—and the concentration of global wealth into fewer & fewer pockets, we see global environmental destruction. Libertarians agree that government should protect life and liberty. With its undeclared wars, murder by drones, widespread use of torture, "indefinite detention without trial," suspension of habeas corpus, and the current administration utilizing the Espionage Act more than all previous administrations combined—the federal government under neocons and neolibs is acting in the exact opposite capacity. Sadly, these events are so widespread and well known, I don't think I even need to provide links to articles on these topics. Even mainstream media reports on it.

However, I differ from most libertarians in that I believe that ecological protection is a direct extension of the role of protecting life. By definition, evolution selects for species that out-survive others. Survival and reproduction are at the core of any living organism. Humans, on the other hand, knowing that our actions raise the probability of the destruction of our species do little to stem this threat. Perhaps the problem seems too big for us to conquer. Well, that is exactly the point of federal government, to take on problems that are too big to otherwise tackle.

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The Case for Stein

^{Jim Hanson, not Jim Henson!}

The Green New Deal declares that (we have a) climate emergency—which is very real. Every month now is setting a new world record for the month of that name in terms of heat, record storms, the fires up and down the West coast, the flooding in the Southeast, and sea level rise predictions. Now, with Jim Hanson—who hasn't been wrong yet—saying most recently that we can expect 10 feet and more of sea level rise as soon as 2060—is the date he put it at. So, it is an emergency and we must solve it.

When Pearl Harbor was bombed at the outset of the second World War, it took us six months, only, to transform our economy to a wartime footing because we recognized a national emergency. Right now we have a global emergency that actually makes Pearl Harbor look like small potatoes because we're not talking about one harbor. We're talking about all harbors—all coastal population centers—that we will lose in a catastrophic hit to civilization that it will be very hard to survive. So we’re talking, not centuries away, we're talking in all likelihood this century and potentially within decades. So it is time to mobilize.

We have a global emergency that makes Pearl Harbor look like small potatoes. We're not talking about one harbor. We're talking about all coastal population centers.

We call for eliminating fossil fuels by 2030, which is what the science actually says we must do if we are to hold temperature rise to less than 1.5 degrees Centigrade such that we can survive. If we do that, we'd get so much healthier, in fact, that we'd save enough money to actually pay the costs of the Green New Deal within a decade or so. So this is a win-win. The other win, I might add, is that it makes the wars for oil obsolete, which also allows us to put our dollars, then, into true security here at home.
—Jill Stein, interview with Living on Earth, September 30, 2016

So, this is why, even as a libertarian, I am voting for Jill Stein. There is no perfect candidate, but I think she blows the others out of the water. Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson—as his recent widely-publicized gaffes attest—is so focused on domestic policies that the only thought he has put into foreign policy seems to be, "Any decision about deploying military force would be based on a fundamental determination of what is necessary to protect the people of the United States, as opposed to unnecessary interventions of recent years." While this is an excellent and obvious platitude, it addresses very little.

Stein agrees with non-interventionism, but goes even further.

It's about half of your income tax right now that's actually going to the military, and it is more than half of our discretionary budget. We actually call for a new kind of offensive in the Middle East: a "peace offensive" which begins with a weapons embargo, since we are supplying the majority of weapons which actually get into the hands of all parties—all combatants—in the Middle East. We can get this started and work to bring along the Russians and the Chinese. But, the Russians in particular are also struggling with the consequences of terrorism, the failed nature of these wars, and with climate change for that matter—Russia having endured several droughts and reductions in their grain supply and so on. And, they are massively impacted by their fossil fuels and the pollution and all that.

Why does the US, have 800 military bases in over 100 countries? We are protecting our access to fossil fuel supplies and the routes of transportation.

So, we would like to lead the way, actually, in redirecting our massive dollars from competing for fossil fuels to, instead, actually phasing out fossil fuels; to encourage the Russians and the Chinese—because they too are bearing the burden here. Why don't we all just put those dollars into making fossil fuels obsolete and making the wars and the competition obsolete as well? Because, why do we, the US, have approximately (between) 800 (and) 1,000 bases in over 100 countries around the world? We are protecting our access to fossil fuel supplies and the routes of transportation. We are the only country in the world that does this. If you add up all the other foreign bases in all the other countries around the world it comes out to about 30.
—Jill Stein, LoE interview

In fact, Dr. Stein is the only candidate who supports cutting funding to both Israel & Saudi Arabia for their war crimes. But, what about people who say that a third party can't get elected?

The bottom line is: we're only told we're powerless.

Well, here's an obvious solution: we can enact Ranked Choice Voting right now and eliminate any splitting of the vote—any spoiling of the vote. By the way, the parties of abolition at the time of the movement to abolish slavery, they were also called spoiler parties because they were disrupting the system. So, sometimes the system is so corrupt and so deadly that it needs to be spoiled if we're going to get out of here alive, and I would encourage people to actually look at the record. Because, while there are differences between the Democratic and Republican parties, unfortunately, those differences … are not enough to save your life, not enough to save your job, and not enough to save the planet.

So, the bottom line (is), you know, we're told we're powerless. In fact, there're 43 million young people who were locked into student loan debt right now. That is actually a winning number in a three-way presidential race. So, we're only running low in the polls because the corporate media refuses to cover us. We've had less time than anyone—basically three seconds of prime time network coverage is how much we've gotten—yet we are up there in the polls where non-corporate parties have never been before because there is so much hunger.

Democracy isn't a question of who we hate and fear the most. If we don't provide a moral compass, the predatory political parties funded by big banks, fossil fuel giants, and war profiteers will continue to rule the day.

Remember in this race it's not like Bush–Nader-Gore because the public has rejected these (current) candidates. They're the most disliked and distrusted ever in our history. Even the majority of Donald's supporters don't support him. They just can't accept Hillary. And, the majority of Hillary supporters don't actually support her. They're actually viciously against Donald Trump. What's wrong with this picture? Democracy is not a question of who we hate and fear the most. It needs an affirmative direction. It needs a moral compass. If we don't provide a moral compass, we have a moral vacuum and it is the predatory political parties funded by the big banks, the fossil fuel giants, and the war profiteers who will continue to rule the day. We need to put our feet down in the words of Alice Walker, "The biggest way people give up power is by not knowing we have it to start with." We haven't. It's time to use it because to fail to use it now means we continue down this road. When is it going to get better exactly? When are we going to have an election in which we can risk standing up if we can't do it now?
—Jill Stein, LoE interview

And remember, Abe Lincoln was a third party candidate.

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Paul for Stein!?

Still with me? Well get this! Libertarian sweetheart Ron Paul agrees.

So, diligent readers, what do you think?

Attributions:

• Time for Anarchy
• via Pixabay, CC0 Public Domain
• Wealth Inequality in America
• Creative Commons Attribution license (reuse allowed)
• Source: Wealth Inequality in America by politizane (via YouTube)
• Green Anarchism Flag:
• This image of simple geometry is ineligible for copyright and therefore in the public domain, because it consists entirely of information that is common property and contains no original authorship.
• Jim Henson & Kermit the Frog
• via Wikia, unattributed
• Living on Earth Interview with Dr. Jill Stein:
• © (Copyright) World Media Foundation. All Rights Reserved. Use in this article constitutes Fair Use. Please contact me if you feel otherwise.
• Mornings with Maria Interview with Dr. Ron Paul:
• ©2016 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved. Use in this article constitutes Fair Use. Please contact me if you feel otherwise.