Clark Patterson

Disagree

Strongly Agree

Agree

As an Ayn Rand Objectivist, I don't believe that life begins at conception. Even if life begins at conception, no one has the right to live at the expense of another life. A woman cannot be forced to use her body as a mandatory life support system for her fetus by forcing her to carry her fetus to term. Consequently, I'm pro-choice on abortion.

Strongly Disagree

Strongly Agree

Because Libertarians recognize that today's mandatory Social Security system is a modern day Ponzi scheme, Libertarians favor phasing out and abolishing Social Security and the compulsory payroll tax that finances it. I favor phasing out Social Security within one to two generations (25-50 years). Social Security should immediately be made voluntary for all Americans and the current overly-generous benefit levels should be reduced for current recipients under 70. Finally, as Social Security is being phased out, a recipient's lifetime benefit payments should not exceed his total payroll tax contributions during his working years.

Libertarians believe that government spending should be drastically cut across-the-board, cutting both "guns" and "butter." We should phase out all so-called entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid within 25-50 years, so that all Americans have time to plan accordingly. We should also cut at least 70 percent of the defense budget by closing all overseas military bases and withdrawing from the UN, NATO and all other entangling alliances.

Under no circumstances. We should defund higher education. Private companies like Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and millions of others, could train their own engineers, accountants, managers, lawyers and other workers in less than four years and at a fraction of the cost of today’s colleges and universities. The great expansion in higher ed spending since WWII has created a college-industrial complex and produced the most over-credentialized, undereducated society in history.

Strongly Agree

Strongly Agree

Yes

This means that all levels of government should neither inhibit nor establish any religion or religious speech and expression. Libertarians believe in the complete separation of church and state as well as the complete separation of economy and state, education and state, health care and state, etc. Libertarians are First Amendment absolutists and believe that all speech, including religious expression, should be vehemently protected.

Strongly Disagree

Strongly Disagree

The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) should be phased out. We should also phase out Medicare and Medicaid within one to two generations [25-50 years]. Libertarians believe there should be no governmental involvement in health care at all. Unfortunately, too many Americans today believe that health care is a right. It is not. Removing all levels of government from health care would, in the long run, greatly reduce overall health care spending. In a complete free market in health care, Americans would pay almost all of their health care costs "out of pocket." Health insurance, if it still existed, would likely only pay for health emergencies.

Neutral

Radical Islamic terrorism against the US is caused primarily by the US' interventionist foreign policy. In his Aug 1996 and Feb 1998 fatwas, Osama bin Laden claimed he was motivated by US military intervention in the Muslim world, specifically 1) US troops in Saudi Arabia; 2) the US-led sanctions against Iraq and; 3) US support for Israel against the Palestinians. His fatwas say nothing about the US' economic freedom, rock and roll music, scantily clad females, or other modern day Western cultural phenomena. It's not Who We Are but What We Do that causes terrorism. Libertarians understand that shifting to a US foreign policy of strict non-interventionism is the single best way to end radical Islamic terrorism against the US and the West.

Disagree

Neutral

Neutral

Disagree

I ardently support comprehensive immigration reform based on greatly increasing legal levels of immigration. In a 2012 Gallup poll, roughly 150 million foreigners expressed a desire to immigrate to the US. With some procedural vetting, we should allow the vast majority to do so. Contrary to the current conventional wisdom, immigration is a win-win proposition. Immigrants benefit from moving to the US, but so do natives. Consequently, we should legalize the current 11.2 million undocumented workers and Dreamers and grant them a pathway to citizenship. We should also allow in many more political refugees. And more legal immigration would almost completely eliminate human trafficking and sex slavery, since refugees do not need to sell themselves into slavery if they can freely migrate to another country.

Strongly Disagree

Disagree

Disagree

I'm an Ayn Rand Objectivist. We are completely secular and believe that one can answer the question "Why be moral?" without an appeal to theism or supernaturalism. In the age-old duel between Aristotle and Plato, Objectivism follows Aristotle while Judeo-Christianity and Islam follow Plato. There is much more support for Lockean natural rights, classical liberalism and free market capitalism in the works of Aristotle and Ayn Rand than there is in the works of Plato or in the Torah, the Talmud or the King James Bible.

Somewhat Conservative

To validate my answer to the previous question, please visit my campaign website at: http://www.clarkpforcongress.com and my campaign Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/ClarkPattersonforUSCongress and my Twitter feed at: https://twitter.com/clarkpatterso12

No.

I’m running for Congress to advocate the philosphic ideas of Ayn Rand and her philosophy of Objectivism and the economic views of Ludwig von Mises and the Austrian School of economics. Bad philosophic and economic ideas have led America to our current philosophic, cultural, and financial crises. Only the sound views of Rand and of Mises and the Austrian School can make America great again. It’s my sincere belief that America is on a slow road to an authoritarian state. Only massive cuts in government spending and a severe reduction in the size and scope of government -- at the federal, state, and local levels -- can avert this. And the massive cuts and severe reduction need to begin immediately. Finally, for too long in American politics, we’ve focused on the short run – not the long run. This must change immediately. Ultimately, the long run is far more important.

Disagree

Libertarians emphatically oppose federal bans on guns and assault weapons. Over the last 45 years, the murder rate and the number of people who have died from gun violence in the US has fallen dramatically. During this same period, the number of guns purchased in the US has risen sharply. Libertarians believe in maximizing freedom and believe in a presumption of innocence for all persons. The US should not attempt to protect rights by restricting rights.

Disagree

Strongly Agree

Strongly Disagree

Neutral

1) To regain control of the federal government's annual trillion dollar deficits and overall $26.6 trillion debt (and rising), I will work to phase out over 25-50 years all entitlement programs, such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Social Security should immediately be made voluntary for all Americans and Social Security's current overly generous benefit levels should be reduced for today's recipients under 70. Finally, as Social Security is being phased out, a recipient's lifetime benefit payments should not exceed his total payroll tax contributions during his working years. 2) I will propose legislation to audit and then end the Federal Reserve System, replacing today's fiat money with a 100 percent gold dollar. Under this new system, the market itself would determine interest rates. 3) I will author legislation to implement a foreign policy of strict non-interventionism by closing all overseas military bases and withdrawing from all entangling alliances.

No. Systemic racism ended in the US in the mid-1960s. Race is a biological fiction and a social construction. Libertarians oppose all governmental classifications of Americans on the basis of race or ethnicity. Racial and ethnic classifications are always arbitrary, imprecise, and often divisive. For example, in the 1970 US Census, only five race categories were included, but in the 2020 Census, 15 racial categories are listed. These classifications would be capricious enough, even without interracial and inter-ethnic marriage, but in 2013, for example, 25 percent of black males in America married a non-black and 37 percent of Asian-American females married a non-Asian-American. The overall rate of interracial marriage in the US rose from 6.7 percent in 1980 to 15.1 percent in 2010. Because of increasing interracial and interethnic marriage, within a hundred years or so there will no longer be any whites, blacks, Asian-Americans, Hispanics, etc. in the US.