John Jay Myers, the Membership Director of the Libertarian Party talks about the Republican, Democratic and Libertarian Parties

By Betsy Turner & Job Eliazer

Q: What is the Libertarian Party?

A: The Libertarian Party is the 3rd largest political party in the United States. One of the problems in America is the belief that we have a two party system and that keeps the people divided. For instance, I am an anti-war guy but I’m also a fiscal conservative. Well, where does that place me? Being anti-war will put me in the Democratic camp but being fiscally conservative will put me in the Republican camp. This means, I will never win a Republican primary or a Democratic primary. Libertarian Party gives people a choice, something other than what Republicans or Democrats offer them. Normally the American people are fiscally conservative but socially tolerant. They are described as people who just want their government to stop taking their money but they don’t mind what other people do.

Nowadays, we have seen so much of what the Republicans and Democrats have done. During the Republican administration we have had wars in Iraq and Afganistan. Obama has continued those wars and he has added more wars like the war in Libya. He has escalated troops over there. The Republicans talked about Medicaid and Medicare. They increased 20 trillion dollars worth of unfunded liabilities through the 2004 Medicare Part D plan. Yet, when Obama comes up with a healthcare bill they say we cannot have that. It is hypocritical for the Republicans to say that. And then there is the TARP Bailout. The Republicans say we cannot have these bailouts when they are fully responsible for the bailouts. Pete Sessions, John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan all voted for the bailouts. American people are blind. Both sides are the same at the top. Libertarians give people a choice and that choice is to say NO to what we have.

An English Philosopher G.K. Chesterton from the 30’s said that we are always getting divided into two because the progressives want to muck things up and bring money to their side whereas the conservatives just allow things to remain mucked up but they are always promising that they will do something about it.

Right now the way we handle money is we earn $22,000 and we spend $38,000 a year. That is what we do every year. People like Paul Krugman, American economist speak on television about how the economic theory works. Anyone with common sense knows that we need to stop spending money, The Republicans say that we need to stop spending money but not on the military. The Democrats say that we need to stop spending money but not on our welfare, entitlement states and the 70 trillion unfunded liabilities. My take on this is let us give up both and that is what the libertarian party stands for (Stop Spending Money).

Libertarians are basically little government people. Austrian philosophy points out that if the government gets involved it gets it wrong. If government gets involved it usually creates more problems and that is true. The way we can get America moving forward is by lessening the government in our lives, in particular the federal government and bring it close to local as possible. If I want to help the schools here why do I have to send money to Washington and they make a decision and send it back to me. We are right here; we can handle our own schools. The healthcare bill knows we are about to go through a recession and a huge depression in the country again. So the lobbyists for the insurance companies will make you buy their insurance so they will be fine. The same thing goes for the TARP bailout that is here to save us all. We will give a lot of money to the bank who knew the huge recession was coming up. So they will have the money when it actually has value and devalues the money in our pocket. The TARPs, wars in Libya and the rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan are politically influenced by the people who want us to spend a lot of money. For me, both the Republican and the Democratic parties are the same, they just pretend to be different.

It shouldn’t be the role of the government to be telling people what to do. You have the right to tell a person you should not be gay but you don’t have the right to use the government to do that. Regarding abortion, Republicans held the House, the Senate, the Presidency and the Supreme Court for six years during which time they never presented a bill on abortion. As soon as they lost power in 2006 a couple of people said “oh we need to pass this bill on abortion” but they knew that it will never pass. Republicans use this as an issue; they use it to vibe people. The democrats are glad that the Republicans have this as an issue because it helps them to divide the people. Neither one of them are for it. If you want to make abortion illegal you can never get a solution from the government. There are other ways outside of the political realm that could actually work. The libertarian Party will not pay for an abortion or support government to give money to a group that supports abortion, because we don’t believe that it is the government’s business. In the libertarian party there are people who are for abortion and people who are against abortion. We just don’t believe that the government should be involved. The government is not going to get rid of it. Even if they do get rid of abortion, it will be done illegally in the black market just like drugs.

If I had to make a new slogan for the libertarian party, it would be End the war, End corporatism, Live your life as you please.

Q: A lot of people don’t know about the libertarian party. How do you plan on educating the people?

A: The Libertarian party has 250 members and 20000 voters in Dallas. We are trying to get the different counties setup and a county chair to head each county who will help the people get on the ballot. I am currently the Membership Director of the Texas libertarian party. In Texas out of 250 counties only 50 county chairs have been set up. My mission is to get a county chair in every county and a group underneath them. We need an organization in place for these people. We need an infrastructure set up in Texas. We are making five minutes activist videos to educate people about the libertarian party. We are doing everything to get the word out there that this party exists.

The other mission of the libertarian party is being a think tank, to influence other political parties. If the libertarian party gets 20% of the votes, the Republicans and the Democrats might start becoming like the Libertarian. For example, the Republicans might become anti-war or the Democrats might start putting the brakes on spending.

My original quote is I don’t believe that Barack Obama is singlehandedly destroying the country. I know that like the Republicans he is using both hands.