Franklin County Libertarians

As 2023 arrives and the two-year anniversary of the infamous January 6th insurrection approaches, there is plenty to be grateful for as our imperfect nation ventures into the new year. Of course, there is also still much work to be done and more good fights to be fought. Here in Ohio, fascism continues to stand on our doorstep –– and is perhaps even knocking on the door –– especially as a new GOP supermajority is set to be seated in our Statehouse in January and Governor Mike DeWine starts his second term, both of which were decided by a majority of Ohio voters. Because of these recent midterm results, Ohio Republicans have been given a mandate –– and they will likely use it to their own advantage, just as they have since seizing power of every branch of our state government in 2010.

Case in point –– one of the Ohio GOP’s first power grabs after 2010 was to gerrymander Democrats out of relevance, redrawing Ohio’s state legislative and congressional districts in such a way that Democrats would eventually be relegated to obscurity. Consequently, Ohio’s Democrats have been plagued by a lack of funding, infighting and an inability to recruit quality candidates ever since. Then in 2013, when the GOP was gearing up for former Governor John Kasich’s re-election campaign in 2014, Republican power brokers realized the Libertarian Party of Ohio posed a threat to their win numbers, so they passed new ballot access rules to relegate Libertarians to obscurity as well. Consequently, Ohio’s Libertarians have been plagued by a lack of funding, infighting and an inability to recruit quality candidates ever since.

After their landslide victories in 2022, now the GOP is “coming for it all” –– to paraphrase Athens, Ohio’s own Joe Burrow in a less-fun way, when he was asked about the Cincinnati Bengals’ run for the Super Bowl earlier this year. In Ohio Republicans’ case, their next power grab will be to make it harder for Ohioans to amend our state constitution through a direct vote, a procedure that has been in place for over 100 years. This constitutional right ensured that Ohioans had a way to bypass an unresponsive state legislature and was endorsed by principled high-profile Republicans at the time, such as former President Teddy Roosevelt. Perhaps the irony is lost on Ohio’s modern day “Republicans” that their name derives from the term republic, in which power is held by the people and their elected representatives.

In fact, one of the most famous and often cited stories of the founding of our country –– an imperfect representative democratic constitutional republic as it may be, for anyone who needs an even longer definition –– is that as Benjamin Franklin was leaving Independence Hall in 1787, he was asked by a bystander about what kind of government the Constitutional Convention had created. Would it be “a republic or a monarchy?” Franklin reportedly replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.” Those poignant words still ring true today, especially as the potential tyranny of the supermajority –– or even a vocal minority –– attempts to enact policies that negatively impact millions of individuals’ rights. After all, republics are supposed to protect the constitutional rights of all citizens, not take them away.

Perhaps Ohio’s modern day Republicans need a reminder of this fact, especially considering that the Republican Party was originally founded as a third political party in the 1850s that sought to create a coalition of abolitionists –– those who were vehemently opposed to the practice of slavery in the United States –– as well as disenfranchised Whigs, the only political opposition at that time to the powerful and growing Democratic contingent in the country. Instead, this political party that started as a minor political party focused on protecting the rights of minorities has now turned their backs on both of those groups, while their supermajority only grows. From destroying minor parties’ ballot access to making it harder for poorer Ohioans to vote, Ohio Republicans seem to not understand the basic definition of “republic” at all.

So now it is our job as citizens to remind them. Earlier this month, I was proud to join over 500 demonstrators from over 170 organizations at the Statehouse to remind our elected representatives who exactly they are representing and what they can and cannot do as our elected representatives. We were there to remind them that their plan to make it harder for Ohioans to amend our state constitution would not be an easy fight. Fortunately, the legislature scrapped their plans to pass HJR6 due to a lack of support –– and while it may be gone for now, the effort could come back in 2023. If it does, this same coalition of Ohioans will be ready to fight again. After all, this is still a republic –– if we can keep it.

Travis Irving, 2018 Ohio Libertarian Gubernatorial Candidate 
“This column was also published in The Columbus Free Press.” 

My wife and I recently celebrated the birth of our first child. A few weeks before he was born we were watching a particularly depressing evening news broadcast. We sat through half a dozen stories that evoked feelings of anger, sadness, and despair before looking at each other and asking, “What are we doing bringing a kid into this crazy world?” The question was somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but I imagine every parent asks themselves that at some point and it’s really not surprising why. Let’s take stock of where we’re at…

We’ve just come out of a multi-year pandemic that resulted in millions of lives lost. The attempt to control the severity of the pandemic has had a myriad of negative consequences. In an effort to save the crashing economy, the federal government initiated trillions of dollars of additional spending^[1] with assistance from the federal reserve, which printed the money out of thin air. This increase in the money supply^[2] devalued the dollar, and coupled with labor shortages, caused price increases that haven’t been seen in decades. Drug overdose deaths are higher^[3], violent crime is on the rise^[4], and home ownership is now even more of a pipedream for millennials and Generation Z^[5].

When the pandemic started, children were sent home from school as districts scrambled to facilitate remote learning. When they were allowed to attend in-person, they were often required to wear face coverings. There is evidence that this response to COVID has saddled our children with a number of issues. We now have stunted personality development of young adults^[6] and a mental health crisis for children^[7]. ACT scores have dropped to their lowest in 30 years^[8]. Two decades of progress in math and reading have vanished^[9]. Our kids are now more obese than ever, with evidence that the average BMI for children have doubled^[10].

In times like this, we should be able to turn to our leaders for guidance on where to go from here. Let’s check in on them to see where their priorities are: We have governors who are trying to harm the reputation of those in the opposing party by punting immigrants between states like a political football^[11]. They’re sending billions of dollars (that we don’t have) to Ukraine^[12] for a war that doesn’t involve us, increasing the risk of nuclear war with Russia. They’re beefing up IRS enforcement^[13] to try and shake more pennies out of our piggy banks. And they’re arguing over whether Elon Musk should be allowed to buy Twitter^[14].

So we face some large and unwieldy problems, and we have a political class that is either unwilling or unable to tackle them. I’ve always cared about liberty and freedom, but now I find myself asking what sort of country we’re going to be leaving for my son. Should we load him up with a public debt and a tax bill that he has no ability to consent to paying? Should we continue to devalue our currency and inflate the costs of college and home ownership? Am I supposed to be okay with him being obese, stupid, and depressed the next time a public health crisis emerges?

Since we cannot rely on our existing leaders to solve our problems, and since these leaders seem determined to curb our liberties at every step, we must roll up our sleeves and provide solutions ourselves. As Libertarians, we must be the voice calling for sound money, reduced government spending and taxation, and an end to involvement in foreign wars. It is imperative that we never allow the education or the social and emotional development of our children to suffer at the hands of bureaucrats and noisy fear-mongers. The fallout of the response to COVID should be the perfect case-study demonstrating how negative consequences are forced upon people when the government implements top-down edicts.

Fortunately, there is hope to be found in this sea of tears. Public trust in government remains very low^[15]. The CDC has admitted that it got some things wrong^[16]. More and more people are taking their children out of government schools and enrolling in private school^[17] or opting to homeschool^[18]. Homeschooled students tend to outperform their public school counterparts.^[19] [20] And Americans are more willing to voluntarily help others with their time and money than they were before COVID^[21].

The evidence is clear: top-down solutions have a tendency to create more harm than good. Solutions that are local and voluntary can minimize widespread risk and allow for faster error correction. Future generations are depending on us to set things right and we need to be ready to answer that call.

Jordan Bertke, FCLPO Executive Committee At-Large Member

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[1] https://www.usaspending.gov/disaster/covid-19?publicLaw=all

[2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=V2aQ

[3] https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/p1218-overdose-deaths-covid-19.html

[4] https://www.safehome.org/resources/crime-statistics-by-state/

[5] https://www.statista.com/topics/4403/millennials-and-real-estate-in-the-us/

[6] https://www.sciencenews.org/article/pandemic-young-adults-personality-development

[7] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8445752/

[8] https://leadershipblog.act.org/2022/10/GradClassRelease2022.html

[9] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/01/us/national-test-scores-math-reading-pandemic.html

[10] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7037a3.htm?s_cid=mm7037a3_w

[11] https://nypost.com/2022/09/15/ron-desantis-ships-2-planes-of-migrants-to-marthas-vineyard/

[12] https://nypost.com/2022/10/04/biden-sending-ukraine-625m-in-weapons-from-shrinking-us-stockpile/

[13] https://taxfoundation.org/inflation-reduction-act-irs-funding/

[14] https://ww w.foxnews.com/politics/congress-senate-house-musk-twitter

[15] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/06/06/public-trust-in-government-1958-2022/

[16] https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2022/aug/24/opinion-cdc-finally-admits-it-botched-covid/

[17] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/07/during-covid-more-families-switch-to-private-school-from-public-.html

[18] https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/03/homeschooling-on-the-rise-during-covid-19-pandemic.html

[19] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232544669_The_Impact_of_Schooling_on_Academic_Achievement_Evidence_From_Homeschooled_and_Traditionally_Schooled_Students

[20] https://www.nheri.org/homeschool-sat-scores-for-2014-higher-than-national-average/

[21] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-08748-2