A 21-year-old woman (millennial) explains why she's voting for Johnson.

[Rules for me, but not for thee]

Great stuff here.  I'm not the best at explaining my ideas or ideals all the time, so this is a great piece:

http://www.vox.com/first-person/2016/10/19/13307630/gary-johnson-millennial-voter

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That's how I see things here.  Only from my perspective I am older and everyone thinks we should "grow out of Libertarianism"; that it's a philosophy for the young and naive.  Well, if you take it at 100% face value, maybe some things are very long shot.  But the core beliefs are something I will always believe in: the freedom to do what I would like, the Non-Aggression Principle, small(er) government.  And if there is a chance for libertarians to become a major voice in politics...we have to vote for Gary Johnson.

[Southern Delegate matthew27]

She likes the idea of no highways, no science institutions, no safetynet and no food safety standards. I don't get how anyone with a minimum education would wish for this.

[Yank2133]

God, I can't stand libertarians.

[The Other Castro]

I can respect some of the aspects of Libertarianism in certain forms, but the Libertarian Party itself is currently undeserving of the recognition of a serious party.

[Devout Centrist]

Vote your conscious, don't vote to "send a message".

[Orthogonian Society Treasurer]

She likes the idea of no highways, no science institutions, no safetynet and no food safety standards. I don't get how anyone with a minimum education would wish for this.

New Mexicans can attest to this; their quality of life plummeted when Governor Johnson physically tore up all the highways and abolished all food safety standards.

[Pyro]

Applaud her dissenting voice and courage to stand up for her beliefs in the face of elder family members (not easy to do), though, nonetheless, I retain deep concerns over libertarian policy in general.

[Rules for me, but not for thee]

Vote your conscious, don't vote to "send a message".

You can't do both? Which is what she's clearly doing.

[‼realJohnEwards‼]

She likes the idea of no highways, no science institutions, no safetynet and no food safety standards. I don't get how anyone with a minimum education would wish for this.

New Mexicans can attest to this; their quality of life plummeted when Governor Johnson physically tore up all the highways and abolished all food safety standards.

Ummm, she specifically mentions the Libertarians, not Johnson's policies in particular. Even so, the policies which Johnson has espoused are basically "generic Libertarian" in many ways.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Terrible views, but I still appreciate seeing a young person be politically engaged. We all should be.

[Rules for me, but not for thee]

She likes the idea of no highwaystoll roads with no taxes(and built faster/cheaper), no science institutions(private science institutions are driving innovation right now), no safety net(what if life was good enough a safety net was mostly not required?) and no food safety standards(why not have many private investigators?). I don't get how anyone witha minimum education entitlement complex would wish for this.

[Rules for me, but not for thee]

She likes the idea of no highways, no science institutions, no safetynet and no food safety standards. I don't get how anyone with a minimum education would wish for this.

New Mexicans can attest to this; their quality of life plummeted when Governor Johnson physically tore up all the highways and abolished all food safety standards.

LOL NO MUH ROADSSSS!

[Lyin' Steve]

"millennial" was all you really needed to say

[‼realJohnEwards‼]

"What if life was good enough that a safety net was mostly not required"? Do you even understand what the safety net is?

[Rules for me, but not for thee]

"What if life was good enough that a safety net was mostly not required"? Do you even understand what the safety net is?

How about instead of questioning my intelligence, libBRO, you make your point.

[BoAtlantis]

Compared to other generations, millennials are more likely to be are pro-free trade, pro-amnesty, pro-marijuana, anti-death penalty, pro universal healthcare, supportive of raising tax for rich, pro-equality and pro-welfare for the needy.

It still aligns with liberalism and not so much for libertarianism. At best, they're described as left leaning libertarian.

I've seen many fellow millennials that say they're voting for Johnson or Stein but they couldn't even name which state they're from or name their running mate. In their defense, millions of Americans don't know either but the voting behavior is irrational to me. At least know who you're voting for.

[Rules for me, but not for thee]

Compared to other generations, millennials are more likely to be are pro-free trade, pro-amnesty, pro-marijuana, anti-death penalty, pro universal healthcare, supportive of raising tax for rich, pro-equality and pro-welfare for the needy.

It still aligns with liberalism and not so much for libertarianism. At best, they're described as left leaning libertarian.

I've seen many fellow millennials that say they're voting for Johnson or Stein but they couldn't even name which state they're from or name their running mate. In their defense, millions of Americans don't know either but the voting behavior is irrational to me.

Well what is really irrational to me is voting for one terrible candidate to stop one from the other side, when you don't really align with (or believe in) either.  

Also what does it matter what trivia they know about the candidate?  Aren't the philosophies and positions more important?  If they know the candidates' basic positions on political stances but not their hometown and favorite food, isn't that still an informed voter (by minimal standards)?

[Cashew]

Applaud her dissenting voice and courage to stand up for her beliefs in the face of elder family members (not easy to do), though, nonetheless, I retain deep concerns over libertarian policy in general.

[BoAtlantis]

Compared to other generations, millennials are more likely to be are pro-free trade, pro-amnesty, pro-marijuana, anti-death penalty, pro universal healthcare, supportive of raising tax for rich, pro-equality and pro-welfare for the needy.

It still aligns with liberalism and not so much for libertarianism. At best, they're described as left leaning libertarian.

I've seen many fellow millennials that say they're voting for Johnson or Stein but they couldn't even name which state they're from or name their running mate. In their defense, millions of Americans don't know either but the voting behavior is irrational to me.

Well what is really irrational to me is voting for one terrible candidate to stop one from the other side, when you don't really align with (or believe in) either.  

I only respect true libertarians, the type that truly despises both parties with passion. This group is among the smartest group of people I've seen.

The "libertarians" I reject, which make up a majority of what I've observed, are the in-the-closet Republicans that want to smoke pots and the youngsters that are for raising taxes on rich, universal health care, equal pay, raise in minimum wage etc. yet are voting for Johnson out of emotion.

[OneJ]

Well it doesn't really matter to me because I have an unfavorable view on both of the major third parties. (Libertarians for economic policies and their terrible Convention this year and the Green Party for hating the Democrats and having twisted views)

America needs to have better third parties before we can move on to a multi-party system.

Plus, at the end of the day, Millennials are coming home to Clinton anyway. Sure it is a slow process this year, but there is clearly a trend. They are starting to realize that they may not necessarily like her, but we need to keep Trump out of the White House and she did show out during all of the debates thus far.

[Rules for me, but not for thee]

I think the big assumption/fallacy is that electing a libertarian president or few congress folk will tear the fragile system asunder.  When we just want to win a few battles to turn the tide against ever increasing size of government, domestic surveillance, police statism, taxes, and people who want to silence us and others like the regressive left.

[Rules for me, but not for thee]

America needs to have better third parties before we can move on to a multi-party system.

Plus, at the end of the day, Millennials are coming home to Clinton anyway. Sure it is a slow process this year, but there is clearly a trend. They are starting to realize that they may not necessarily like her, but we need to keep Trump out of the White House and she did show out during all of the debates thus far.

Well, third parties need to be able to build into good parties and the system is obviously stacked against them to do so.

And the "stop Trump" argument is increasingly not a good one.  The Trumpers are gonna Trump but the election is safe Clinton:

https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/789574275518828544

There's never been a better time to support the growth of a 3rd party by presidential vote.  I can understand if you're in a "Toss-up/lean" state that's close but for most of the country a vote for Johnson will mean more.

[Likely Voter]

The 'send a message' idea has been used in the past, but is there any instance where one of the two major parties did anything to respond following an election with a significant 3rd party vote? Have these 'messages' every done anything at all? I can't think of a single example.  

Did the GOP adopt Perot's message after 92 and 96? Did the Dems adopt Nader's after 2000? Seems to me that both parties got back into power without appeasing those voters in any way. In 1968 Southern Dems wanted to send a message to the party with Wallace but two elections later the Dems were back in power and there was no adopting of the Wallace view, if anything it was adopted by the GOP.  Maybe the biggest 'message' candidate was Teddy Roosevelt who split from the GOP and got a quarter of the vote in 1912, but his progressive agenda was not adopted by the party and they were back in power by 1920 in the biggest (PV) landslide ever.


If your goal is strategic voting, maybe this passage will be useful.

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[BoAtlantis]

I think the big assumption/fallacy is that electing a libertarian president or few congress folk will tear the fragile system asunder.  When we just want to win a few battles to turn the tide against ever increasing size of government, domestic surveillance, police statism, taxes, and people who want to silence us and others like the regressive left.

If you were a true libertarian, you would call out right wingers as well for trying to restrict voting rights, tightening immigration laws, marijuana, abortion rights, LGBT rights, and many others.

Police statism and military are favored by far more by right wingers btw. One of right wingers most important values are patriotism and national security after all.

[Hermit For Peace]

I was very idealistic at age 21.

I'm glad I'm not that age any longer. Whew!