Ask Lemmy

I consider myself a centrist libertarian but I often feel like the most conservative one in the room around here. I think America needs electoral reform to allow more viable parties - having no viable alternatives is terrible for voters and leaves them few options if lunatics take over their party. It's too easy for special interests (mostly industry groups) to use the government to obtain special benefits or protection from competition for themselves, with the costs widely spread across society, making it difficult to organize opposition to them. This should be someone's (or a handful of someones') job! An ombudsman or small panel of them, something like that. The government should not be paying off or guaranteeing student loans when people decide to study things that don't lead to careers. If someone wants to get a grad degree in rich people's hobbies or political activism that's their first amendment right but it's a waste of taxpayer dollars. We need at least a plan to allocate limited resources including but not limited to road capacity, ideally with markets. Everyone sitting in traffic and suffering is not a good solution.