[Thomaswhitee]

It would be very nice if young people were changing their stripes and thinking more like libertarians concerned with freedom than with using the government to ensure equality of outcome. I hope it continues. I don't know if I agree that Ron Paul would really take many votes away from Obama, but it's an interesting thought experiment.

39% agree cutting taxes is an effective route to economic growth, 24% agree we should eliminate all barriers to trade, 25% agree recent immigration has done more harm than good These findings are disturbing, and offer me no hope for youth. The tax cut question is stupid, frankly, and should be reworded to ask if they agree that low taxes are an effective route to government growth. There are many different tax cuts and not all of them are equal. But, young people need to have a better understanding of economics and need to understand the crowding out effect of government spending at all levels. And with only 24% agreeing that barriers to trade need to be removed, that tells me that schools are doing a shit job of explaining to children the harm that tariffs and protectionist policies have done in the past, especially in the lead-up to the Great Depression. This is really a key point if you're going to call yourself a libertarian - you have to believe in free trade. And for immigration, well, we've lost that battle. It's over. All we can do is stop new people from coming in, if we can even do that. There is no way that we'll ever be able to make anybody go home. There simply isn't the political will to do so. That saddens me.