libertarians

[Gustaf]

Beet,
As my Nederlande colleague, Arjan Gijsbertsen, used to say, "In the Dutch system, if 9 people like hip-hop and one person likes jazz, you play hip-hop 9 out of every ten songs, and one out of every ten songs will be jazz.  In the US system, if 9 people like hip-hop and one person likes jazz, you play hip-hop ten out of every ten songs."

Apt metaphor, I think, for proportional representation as opposed to winner-take-all.

Yes, there's a good point to that. The counter-ergument for your system would be that if 10 people are all playing different tunes at the same time, everyone will evenetually get a head-ache...

[Gustaf]

Here's my thought on youth and Libertarians. There is wide segment of the population that is for less government - socially and economically. Generally that is the Libertarian stand. However, like many US third parties, the Libertarians often take their platform to extremes.

Young voters with less investment in their lives tend to be more willing to vote on ideology alone, without regard to the relative extremity of the ideology. Older voters become more pragmatic, and want ideology tempered with realism. Neither major party really covers both the social and economic aspects of libertarianism, so I'm not surprised that those who lean towards that ideology are more likely to vote for it when they are young.

I spent some of my adult life in metro Boston and have family there. Many older natives have a strong "Yankee" streak which when you get to it is really realistic libertarianism.  My sense is that is a very old tradition in the region. The older "Yankees" used to vote Republican, but now vote Democrat, since that better matches their practical needs.
 

I agree 100%.

Me too.