The Underlying Problem with Young Americans For Liberty Derrell McIver Warning: This article includes discussion and description of sexual harassment. “Political power is not being chummy with politicians. To effect real change, you have to threaten a politician's power.” -anonymous This is a very difficult article for me to write. Going into college, I did not know how of any political organization that shared my values of Liberty. That was until I helped in the founding of a Young Americans for Liberty chapter and became a dues-paying-member. After a brief interest in the Libertarian Party, I realized that YAL and its associated organizations were the best chance we have at seeing Liberty in politics in our lifetimes. Some people will read this article and call it “cancel culture.” That is not the intent. For that very reason, I have not included the name of the sexual harasser. Instead he will be given the name ‘John’. My goal here is to call out the leaders
To all non-political participating Libertarians, if everything you’ve seen about the LP is a disaster, then I’m sorry you feel that way. You might have a fair point. I won’t go into any silly shenanigans or examples and poke fun at meritless shills , but I sympathize with your point of view. Those guys are typically an embarrassment . I have heard the argument from fellow Libertarians that in the election of 2016, the LP literally couldn’t have been handed a more amazing opportunity than in the past couple of elections. Gary Johnson was just a protest vote against the two worst candidates in history : Donald J. Trump, and Hilary Clinton. There is clear pressure to break from the status quo and they have wasted all of their energy trying to be more status quo, such as Bill Weld running against Trump as a Republican, and Amash becoming a Democrat. However, this time there is actually something over there worth paying attention to. Is another Ron Paul Revolution in the air