In a multi-part series, I am going to find and post the party platforms for all of the national political parties, concerning transportation and energy. Today I’ll start with the Libertarian Party.
Nothing on transportation. On energy, they have this to say:
2.3 Energy and Resources
While energy is needed to fuel a modern society, government should not be subsidizing any particular form of energy. We oppose all government control of energy pricing, allocation, and production.
Short and to the point. But this has it’s good points and its bad. You can boil down the Libertarian platform to “free markets good, government intervention bad”. Which is pretty much what they did this year. Even to the point, that they don’t even have a stated position on transportation.
Of course, it isn’t to say that they’ve never had a position on transportation. They even had a position on public utilities once upon a time. That’s something only a policy wonk would love, but framed the right way, the Libertarians could even put this in a winning message:
“You know why you pay $80 a month for 200 cable channels you don’t watch. Government policies don’t allow you to pick and choose the channels you want to watch, even though the technology is available. You can choose an individual plan for your cell phone, but the government forces everyone to have a one-size fits all plan for cable. It’s time to take cable out of the hands of bureaucrats and lobbyists and back where it belongs, the customer.”
So as an idea of where Libertarians stand on more complex issues, below is the 2004 Libertarian Party platform on some key issues. Read the rest of this entry »
The Highwayman 