Given that Hillary Clinton is unable to use her support of indefinite war in the Middle East and Afghanistan and her commitment to continue the drug war indefinitely, both of which involve continued death, destruction, and corruption, to induce young people to abandon their support of Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gary Johnson (see part 1 and part 2), what argument is she presenting to young people in the attempt to get them to switch to her?
She is using the tried and true method that Democratic (and many Republican) politicians have used ever since the advent of the welfare state in the 1930s. She’s offering young people freebies, in this case free college tuition. Her message is essentially this: “If you vote for Johnson, you’re going to have to pay for your own tuition because libertarians oppose welfare. If you vote for me, I’ll give you free college tuition.”
The freebie strategy works well, of course, with many older people, particularly those who have been inculcated with the notion that it is the responsibility of government to take care of the citizenry with welfare largess.
Social Security is a good example. Every election cycle, Democrats and liberals engage in their standard Social Security fear-mongering campaign: “My Republican opponent will take away your Social Security. Vote for me and I will not only preserve your Social Security payments, I’ll increase them.”
The strategy has worked for decades, precisely because many seniors have developed mindsets of dependency on the dole, much as recipients of other welfare programs (i.e., public housing and food stamps) do. They convince themselves that without Social Security, they would die in the streets. In the process, they also convince themselves that unlike food-stamp recipients and public-housing residents, they are “getting their money back” rather than taking it from young people through the coercive apparatus of the tax system.
The funny part of this is that liberals in the mainstream press who are panicking over growing support among millennials for Gary Johnson are using the standard Social Security fear-mongering and applying it to Johnson. They’re pointing out to millennials that libertarians really do favor a repeal of Social Security and every other welfare-state (and warfare-state) program. Of course, their attack is a bit disingenuous attack when it comes to Johnson, who clearly isn’t the most purist libertarian in the world, given that he is committed to just reforming or reducing Social Security.
But what’s really funny about all this is that Clinton and her ilk are undoubtedly scratching their noodles as to why their old freebie strategy, which works so well with old people, isn’t working well with young people.
One reason might be because young people, unlike old people, are insulted with what has all the earmarks of a political bribe: “If you vote for me, I’ll use my power to give you a freebie in the form of free college tuition.”
Another reason might be because young people, unlike old people, have figured out that the freebie political strategy is nothing more than a cheap, crooked scam to get votes.
Consider Clinton’s offer to increase Social Security payments.
As a practical matter, it makes sense that old people would be excited about the prospect of receiving a larger dole, especially since it’s “free.”
But what’s in it for young people, given that they’re the ones who are being taxed to pay for the increase in Social Security payments? They look at their paychecks and see how much is being taken out to pay for Social Security and other welfare-warfare state programs. They know that they’re already having a difficult time making ends meet, paying bills and rent, buying a home, purchasing furniture or clothes, or going on vacation. Some of them are even delaying getting married and are still living with their parents in their 20s and 30s, owing to financial reasons.
Why should they consider it a benefit to pay even higher taxes to fund higher Social Security payments to seniors when they’re already stretched to the limit?
Liberals respond by saying that young people shouldn’t complain because they have a moral responsibility to help out their parents, grandparents, and other seniors. That might well be but what does that have to do with Social Security, which is nothing more than a socialist program that is founded on force and compulsion rather than on freedom of choice?
How can moral responsibility be divorced from free will? Or to put it another way, how can a person truly be considered to be acting morally when he is forced by the IRS to care for others? Don’t forget, after all, what Clinton (and Trump) will do to a person who refuses to pay his income taxes and Social Security taxes: They will garnish his bank account, grab his salary, place liens on his car and home and then foreclose on them, harass his employer, and send him to jail. Where does moral responsibility fit in the context of all that force and compulsion?
The fact is that Clinton and liberals don’t trust young people to make these choices for themselves. Libertarians do. We say: Repeal Social Security (and income taxation) because people have the fundamental right to decide for themselves what to do with their own money. And we have confidence that most people will exercise their freedom in positive ways.
Clinton and liberals don’t believe that. Even though they won’t openly admit it, they believe that young people can’t be trusted with freedom — that they need to be forced to take care of their parents, the poor, and others in need. They believe that young people need to continue to be treated like children — forced to share their things with others (the welfare state), forcibly sent to their rooms (in a penitentiary) for putting bad things into their mouths (the drug war), and forced to serve their political daddy when ordered to do so (the warfare state).
Consider Clinton’s offer of “free” college tuition. Sounds great on first impression, right? Who wouldn’t like free college tuition (or a free car, a free vacation, or free housing)?
But many young people are able to figure out that “free” college tuition isn’t really free at all. Someone has to pay for it. That’s where taxes come into play.
In order for the government to pay students’ tuition to their colleges, it must first have the funds. Where does it get the funds? By taxing people. So, in order to pay $30,000 in “free” tuition for a student, the government imposes an additional $30,000 in taxes on her parents. Plenty of old people fail to see the problem there, but my bet is that there are lots of young people who are recognizing the problem, as manifested by their support of Gary Johnson.
My advice to Clinton and liberals: Keep focusing on the older crowd, which is obviously still responding well to offers of political freebies, and leave the younger crowd alone. I just don’t think you’re not going to make much headway among millennials with your crooked, corrupt, antiquated freebie strategy.
