Candidate Forum with 50501

Monday, July 21st, I participated in a candidate forum hosted by 50501 and Indivisible and held in Lincolnville, South Carolina. A couple of interesting notes:

• The location was one of the Rosenwald Schools, built by Booker T. Washington and Julius Rosenwald, philanthropist and president of Sears Roebuck. The schools’ purpose was to educate black children after emancipation. Some 5000 such schools were built and operated across the South. It’s a great example of philanthropy voluntarily meeting the needs of a community as opposed to the coercive efforts of government intervention.  
• The event planners invited all candidates who have declared for the US Senate race including the incumbent, Republican Lindsey Graham. No Republicans attended.
• Questions were submitted by registrants.

What was it like? It was fun! I sat next to Dr. Annie Andrews, a polished second-time candidate who articulated clearly her desire to defeat Lindsey Graham. I also enjoyed hearing from Catherine Fleming Bruce, Kyle Freeman, Brandon Brown, and Christopher Giracello. Four of them plan to run in the Democratic primary, Giracello said he would not be accepting help from the Democratic Party, so I took that to mean he plans to run independently while declaring himself a Democratic Socialist.

Below are some of the questions asked (in bold) and some of my responses – the account here is not verbatim. If you want to hear the verbatim, check out this link to the live stream of the event.

There was also this news story about the event. And on The Afternoon Drive on 100.7 The Point on Wednesday, July 23rd, I talked through these topics. Here’s a link to that audio.

What is the biggest problem facing education today and what can be done about it?

While the other five in the panel recommended spending more money on the current system, I told them the system itself is the problem. Apathy is the biggest problem in education, and that may not be the right word, but lack of enthusiasm is a sickness. We have systemized the joy out of learning. 

Education should be liberating and educated people should be able to self-govern. But our system diminishes the value of education every progressive year. Kindergarteners run into the classroom excited to explore and ask questions and learn new things and meet new people. My college students can’t remember the last time they were excited about being in the classroom. How did we get here? 

We have plenty of money, it’s what we’re spending it on that is wrong. We need to be encouraging teachers – those front line workers – to bring their creativity into the space, to bring their love and passion to the front of the experience. We need to fund curiosity and innovation. Start with the teachers and work your way back, slim the administrative side, stop making schools maximum security prisons and start making them free learning environments where joy is everyone’s first goal and compliance isn’t even on the list.

Education is an intentional effort that must evolve to meet the needs of the society it serves. At all levels of education, we have lost the plot. I once blogged on this topic for UnapologeticallyX. Check out some of those ideas and observations here.

What obligation or ability do you have to protect workers and ensure livable wages?

We have a perception problem in this country. What should people be able to afford and when and why are they able? What is a livable wage and when do we expect them to earn it?

Speaking strictly about costs, they’re not much higher, proportionately, than they were in the 1980s. The difference between buyers then and now is the amount of debt they’re carrying. Well before a mortgage, young people are saddled with student loans and consumer debt that leaves them unable to make ends meet on entry-level salaries. Here I think I could have expressed more compassion for our GenZ and Millennial citizens who are carrying an inordinate amount of debt, in large part to the overpriced college degrees they were swindled into funding.

As a Senator, I would open investigations into buy-now-pay-later, for-profit education, and other fringe economy practices that prey upon young consumers. I would end government-backed loans for higher education and force the colleges and universities to offer students in-house or private lender financing for college. Private lenders that issue education loans should be required to provide borrower-advantaged structured repayment plans free of compound interest that guarantee graduates are free of their obligation within a reasonable amount of time. Finally, we should incentivize businesses, community organizations, and non-profits to create scholarships for students or to fund a scholarship clearinghouse that makes up the gaps between what the student can pay and what the college will offer. Higher-need professions should have more money available. Let’s normalize work study and encourage students to build side hustle businesses that earn income while they’re studying.

It’s popular now to say that not everyone needs to go to college and that’s true. So let’s remove the incentive structure that has high schools and districts measuring their success by college-bound students. Let’s incentivize apprenticeship programs, allow students to choose work and graduate-equivalency programs over the last two years of high school. Let’s normalize self-sufficiency and civic engagement through community service or military service. There are a lot of places young people go to learn to be good citizens, let’s make them all valid and rewarding. Throw out the traditional paths and disrupt the industries that have entrenched themselves in perpetuating them.

How do you plan to address intra-party tensions?

Admittedly, this question was not for me and I said as much. In the Libertarian Party, earning consensus is as easy as herding cats. All big tents have clowns. 

An alternative party candidate will need to form coalitions to be successful, both in the campaign and in governing when elected. It’s my goal to speak to over one million South Carolinians before Election Day and to forge bonds with civic, social, faith, and political organizations that share my vision for the kind of disruption South Carolina can send to Washington. We can significantly impact the balance in Washington by sending an independent to the Senate. Together, we can break the status quo. But it will take at least one million votes to do it. You don’t have to be libertarian to vote libertarian. I plan to earn all one million votes. Here’s an old blog about alternative party voting.

Here’s the second hour of The Afternoon Drive where I fielded phone calls and my good friend, Casey Crowe, joined me in the studio. We always get some good calls and I’ve been grateful for the opportunity to answer questions spontaneously as calls are never screened.

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