The U.S. government has become too expensive, according to Michael Badnarik, 2004 Libertarian presidential candidate. Badnarik said last Friday night that the government can no longer serve the purposes it was designed for and must be drastically downsized.
“Government is a parasite,” he said.
Through a series of phone calls, Karl Weis, president of the Loyola College Libertarians, was able to contact Badnarik and ask the former candidate to speak at Loyola. Weis said this was the most serious event the College Libertarians, who got their charter in October of 2004, had organized thus far.
Badnarik, a former computer programmer from Austin, Texas, was on the ballot in 48 states for the 2004 presidential election and received 400,000 popular votes, placing fourth behind fellow third party candidate Ralph Nader. He is traveling the United States speaking about the libertarian movement and teaching a class on the U.S. Constitution.
The Libertarian Party is a political group founded in 1971 that is against all governmental controls over personal or economic decisions of U.S. citizens. The group believes that the purpose of government is to protect the rights to life and property and otherwise not to interfere with society, according to Badnarik.
Libertarian thought, Badnarik said, is against any kind of governmental economic controls. Consumers, not government, he said, should take responsibility for their choices. Badnarik said that if he were elected to office, government controls on healthcare, investments and education would be turned over to the judgment of individual Americans.
On the subject of social security, Badnarik said that the entire institution should never have been created and its privatization is essential.
“Our parents and grandparents were lied to by FDR,” he said. “[They] never should have given the government that responsibility.”
Badnarik also spoke about the social and personal lives of Americans and said that again personal responsibility should be the guiding rule. He said that any government restrictions on or interference with gay marriage, for instance, are unconstitutional. While Badnarik said he did not advocate drug use, he said the “War on Drugs” was an invasion of privacy and a corrupt system. The U.S.A. PATRIOT Act, he said, was the most unconstitutional piece of legislation passed in U.S. history and an affront to any ideal of liberty.
While fielding questions after his lecture, Badnarik said that the Libertarian Party is divided on the issue of abortion, but his current position is pro-choice.
“The Libertarian Party’s premise is that everyone owns his or her own body,” Badnarik said. “We all agree that the baby owns its body after its born, but the question is: When does that ownership take place?”
Badnarik cited Jefferson and Madison as his ideological heroes and spoke of Libertarianism as a return to the ideals of the Founding Fathers.
“Most of what our government does is unconstitutional,” Badnarik said. “The constitution has been abandoned and orphaned, so I have adopted it.”
“Either I will destroy this totalitarian police state or it will destroy me.”
Kevin Corcoran can reached at [email protected].
