A Quick Snapshot of the California Libertarian Party Positions

As more and more Americans find themselves increasingly at odds with both the Democratic and Republican party establishment politicians, individuals and organizations that seem to want to pander to the furthest edges of their platform while forgetting the hundreds of millions of Americans that sit much closer to the middle, third party political platforms – like the Libertarian party, for example, have grown by leaps and bounds.

Established nationally just four short decades ago, the Libertarian party has been able to garner a tremendous amount of momentum over this small block of time. In the 2016 Presidential Election, Gary Johnson ran as the Libertarian Party ticket member and garnered over 4 million votes – the most for a third-party candidate since 1996.

The California Libertarian Party has gotten bigger and bigger, especially in just the last two decades or so. More and more people in the most populous state in the US find themselves disagreeing with some of the staunchly liberal policies that seem to be centered around Los Angeles and other major urban areas while ignoring the blue-collar and rural/agricultural communities of this great state.

Libertarians are looking to take a little bit of what the Democrats do best alongside of what the Republicans do best, mixing and mashing these two disparate political beliefs while building something completely different at the exact same time.

Libertarian Party members are known for having rather firm positions when it comes to believing in a small government that stays out of the personal lives of individual citizens, beliefs that prioritize individual freedom over just about anything and everything else that the government wants to impose upon American citizens.

Traditionally known for moving in lockstep with one another in presenting a very unified front, it’s easy to start to think that the California delegation of the Libertarian Party would stand just a bit apart from the rest of the pack.

If you’re interested in learning where this political party stands on the political spectrum, we’ve included a couple of quick snapshots of their overall working beliefs below – including their beliefs on law and order in California.

Tort Reform – Libertarians always trying to draw a very firm and obvious line delineating where their beliefs begin and end on specific issues, but this is a little bit more challenging for them to enunciate when it comes to something as important as tort reform. On the one hand, most libertarians and Sacramento Auto Accident Attorney, believe that individuals should be held responsible for any harms that they bring to other, but also believe that government-imposed damage awards should be thrown out entirely.

Self-Ownership and Property Rights – On this issue there is next to no debate within the Libertarian Party of California. Individual rights and property rights are some of the most sacred foundations of the libertarian movement, with members believing that everyone has sole ownership over their body and their personal property in all circumstances. Personal injury lawyers will have an easy time working with Libertarian clients for the most part, but any government mandated payouts are going to be met with quite a bit of pushback.

Government Spending – For the most part, libertarians are not at all in favor of taxation. They believe that everyone should be entitled to all fruits of their labor, and that every time the government steps in and takes taxes to fund programs there is inevitable waste, corruption, and raft throughout that the free market would have weeded out entirely.

Libertarian Stance on the Drug War

When it comes to the vaunted War on Drugs in America, it’s an issue that has affected citizens for decades, starting most prominently in the 1970s. To understand this issue, it could take a considerable amount of research. But regardless of that fact, it’s important to realize that both of the primary parties in the United States take very polarizing viewpoints on what to do. Most conservatives advocate for outright criminalization of all substances, whereas those on the left want government to  focus on treatment options.   However, the oft-forgotten side of the political aisle with a very unique solution is the Libertarian Party. Rather than treating users as criminals Libertarians are very much in favor of making virtually all of these substances legal and to have no government interference.

This would dramatically shift the ways drugs and drug users are treated in America. While this is a very compelling statement, why precisely do Libertarians believe what they believe regarding drugs in the first place?

A Failed War

To understand why Libertarians are so fundamentally against the Drug War, you have to understand the Drug War itself. Since the 1970s, the United States has empowered law enforcement agencies both federally and locally to enforce drug laws as they see fit. With the creation of DEA under the Nixon Administration, it dramatically shifted the way that federal law enforcement views those that use and buy drugs. Rather than treating them as byproducts of a larger system, they decided to prosecute and apprehend those that were at the local level, sometimes for many years at a time. This is a terrible idea because what it ends up doing is causing more harm than good, believes many Santa Cruz Personal Injury Lawyers.

Hundreds of thousands of people have since been locked up for a long time for non-violent drug arrests, and these laws have incentivized agencies big and large to go after these criminals. Because of that, law enforcement has no incentive to change how it operates. It is instead incumbent on the legislature to try and decriminalize a lot of these issues because what’s happening is that many citizens are spending a long time in prison for simply possessing a drug.

As Libertarians, they believe that it’s a war that should end and no one should be in prison simply for possessing or using drugs unless it violates the NAP or hurts someone else directly.

The Individual and Smaller Government

Really, the prosecution and apprehension of drug users is an act of violence on the behalf of the state. As Libertarians, having a small state and less influence on what individuals do will ensure that money is no longer wasted locking people up for simply exercising their individual freedoms. In the Libertarian ideal, the individual is the most important aspect of society. Rather than thinking about the collective, we’re concerned about individual rights. And if someone wants to have the freedom to smoke marijuana or use some other sort of substance, they should have the right to do so without fear of imprisonment.