Get to Know Alicia Dearn, A Vice Presidential Candidate for the Libertarian Party

By Avens O’Brien

I had an opportunity this month to talk to Alicia Dearn about her candidacy to be the Vice Presidential nominee for the Libertarian Party. She is one of several candidates running for the spot on the LP ticket, and one of just a couple not specifically attached to a presidential candidate. I was interested in speaking to her to get her perspective on the race, Libertarianism, and why she thinks she’d be a good VP choice for any of the party’s contenders.

You can view her performance in a recent VP debate at the bottom of this piece.

Alicia Dearn is a 37 year old entrepreneur from Missouri, who has been interested in Libertarianism since high school, and registered Libertarian at the age of 18, but she became active in the party in 2012 after a collection of life experiences led her to really want to promote Libertarianism.

By 2012, she’d already been a successful trial lawyer, a successful (“and a failed” – her words) entrepreneur, a world traveler, the spouse of an immigrant, a government employee, a victim of the banking collapse, and a military veteran and military wife. But in 2011 she was hit with a serious illness, experiencing the “healthcare nightmare” in person, and forming strong oppositional opinions in regards to Obamacare.

At that point, in December of 2011, she realized she wanted to do something to promote Libertarianism, something she describes as “the best and only moral answer to worsening economic conditions”. She volunteered for Governor Gary Johnson’s campaign, starting as Missouri State Director, was promoted to Midwest Regional Director, and finally was promoted to General Counsel.

In her roles with the campaign (particularly as General Counsel), she fought for ballot access and debate equality. It illuminated the corruption of the two party system.

“Now the Libertarian party isn’t just my party of choice. It is the only choice. I would rather not vote than vote non-Libertarian.” – Alicia Dearn

She decided to run as a Vice Presidential candidate because she feels she can add something to a Libertarian ticket, accompanying any of the presidential contenders with added diversity: not just as a woman, but as a lawyer, as someone deeply connected the the military, and experienced with small businesses. She’s a good communicator of Libertarian values and solutions to the general public.

Here’s our interview:

AO: I’ve already run through your qualifications, but just personally, why run for Vice President?

AD: I’m not running for VP because I have a burning “will to power.” Rather, I care about what is best for the ticket, the party, and, ultimately, the country. What is best for all three is someone who can present well to the public, promote our policies, recruit to the party, and, articulate the real world impact of a massive Federal government. People are hurting. Liberty is the answer.

AO: Do you have a preference for the Presidential nominee? Would you be willing to run as VP under any of the potential presidential contenders, or is there anyone you wouldn’t want to work with?

AD: I am very optimistic about the opportunity we have in front of us given the state of the Republican and Democrat parties. My goal is to spread my message of positive Libertarianism regardless of who ultimately gets the nomination.

I think it is damaging to the party when someone says, “I won’t support the party if so and so gets nominated.” So you will never hear me say that. The delegation will choose the person who best represents them and I’m fine with that process. I have no reason to believe that I would have trouble working with any of the contenders for the Presidential nomination.

AO: What particular benefit would you be able to bring a presidential campaign?

AD: I offer energy, candor, communication and diversity of experience. As a lawyer, I have a deep understanding of how laws and regulations impact people and businesses, as well as where they fit into the scheme of governance. I can explain the impact of raising the minimum wage, for example, in human terms (and not just abstract economic terms). I have personal experience with the military. I have personal experience with immigration. I have personal experience with the challenges felt by small businesses today. I can communicate about that experience to a diverse range of people.

It does matter that I am a woman. The Libertarian Party is routinely characterized as being all white men. If we want to attract more people to our message, we need to get past that perceived weakness. We can do that by elevating the voices of our women and minority members. I can say personally to half the voting population, “Libertarianism is safe, tolerant, and the right political system for women.”

AO: What would you say are some of the pros and cons of each of the top 3 contenders for President, and how could you in the VP spot help with their race in the general?

AD: Austin Petersen has good media experience and he presents himself well on stage. People are drawn to him as a spokesman for Libertarianism because he is confident and crisp.

John McAfee seems like a deeply thoughtful person when it comes to Libertarian philosophies. He also has a beautiful voice and authentic manner of speaking.

Governor Johnson’s strengths are in his resume as a successful governor and self-made businessman. He’s skilled as a leader in that he can motivate people and get things done without force or threats, which made the people of New Mexico very loyal to him when he was in office.

I don’t think it serves the party to be critical of each other. In fact, it only serves our detractors in discrediting us. We should leave the nastiness to the Republicans and Democrats, and enter the general election looking like a nice alternative.

My value proposition as a VP candidate is the same for all three Presidential candidates. I offer different experiences and my own talents to the ticket. I offer balance and diversity to all three.

AO: I appreciate your preference to run a positive campaign only and sidestepping my question about the cons of each candidate. I think there are ways to be critical of each other in a way that makes us better, not in a way that hurts each other. Do you have any general advice for fellow Libertarians about how to helpfully improve each other when we attempt to recognize and overcome weaknesses?

AD: I’m concerned about a trend I see in our current Presidential race, which tracks what the Republicans and Democrats already do. That trend is to pick your guy, and then to hold him up as infallible, and to tear down the other guy with savagery. Libertarians need to rise above demagoguery.

Attacks are intended to create “us versus them” boundaries. That’s great for creating tribes. A candidate can win that way. The problem for Libertarians is that we are currently too small to be effective when factionalized.

Constructive criticism is different. It is aimed at improving the person whom you are criticizing. Being small, still, we have one blessing: our candidates and leaders represent us because we actually have the opportunity to speak to them and make them better. We can use constructive criticism of our candidates to challenge their ideas and their speech, improving them and refining them for the national stage.

Further, Libertarians champion free markets because competition between businesses causes them to strive to be better. Apple doesn’t have to bash Microsoft. It just has to innovate and offer a better product than Microsoft. In turn, Microsoft improves. The result is that we have two of the world’s most sophisticated and innovative tech companies.

My advice is to avoid the tribal mentality and the demagoguery. Instead, strive to be better or to constructively criticize so that your chosen candidates are better. That way we level up instead of tear down.

AO: Going back to what you can offer a campaign… your background with military is interesting. Could you tell us a little bit more about that and how it’s impacted the way you look at the role of government in military issues, and how that fits within Libertarianism?

AD: I’m third generation Navy. My grandfather was career Navy. My father was career Navy. My sister and brother were both in the Navy. I was a Navy wife who sent my husband off to dangerous unknowns. And before I got married, I was active duty Navy when I went to Annapolis (the Naval Academy) for college. I have a lifelong education in military culture, history, leadership, tactics, and values.

The President as the Commander-in-Chief has the power to send our young military people to their deaths. They have the power to order them to kill other people. All of my life, this was not an abstract concept to me. This was a duty and a danger to the people I was closest to.

I believe in self-defense. I’m proud of my military family. I can honestly say that the people I love the most would give their lives to protect us from attackers. I want to believe that I’m the kind of person who will stand up and do the right thing in the face of tyranny, even at my own peril. I think that most military people are like that. They value honor, ethics, and bravery.

But their bravery does not mean that we should put them in harm’s way at our government’s whim. Our government should not be cavalier with human life, including the lives of our military. They are not expendable. They are people, not statistics.

I feel a deep moral outrage that we are constantly at war, causing young men, women, and their families, immeasurable suffering. Too many people are dying. Many more are being permanently injured physically or psychologically. There is no moral justification. There is no military objective.

Libertarianism isn’t pacifism. It’s not isolationism. It is the recognition that using war merely for political ends is immoral. The only acceptable use of our military is for strong national self-defense.

AO: You also mentioned having been a government employee. Can you tell me what that experience taught you about government or the system? What was your experience like?

AD: In college, I worked as a clerk for the Immigration Court run by the Department of Justice. The court’s judges heard deportation cases (most illegals are summarily deported in mass hearings) and asylum cases appealing adverse decisions.

At my first review, about six months into the job, I was told that I was “too helpful” when answering the public phone lines. I was also told that I worked too quickly. The other employees resented me for getting my work done so fast and taking on more than them. When I ran out of work, I was not permitted to leave or to study, so I would have to sit at my desk and do nothing.

I learned that without free market motives, government becomes unhelpful and inefficient. It bothered me that I was not allowed to be helpful to the people calling in asking about the legal forms I was mailing them. We couldn’t provide assistance or instructions. Why? So that we appeared neutral as the court, which is odd when you consider that the “opposing” side is just more Federal government in the same Department of Justice. If anything, we already lacked an appearance of neutrality by not being public servants.

The government wasn’t there to help these people become legal. It was there to make it hard and then to deport them. At best, government is uncaring. At worst, it is Kafkaesque.

AO: What do you think are some of the biggest issues Libertarians should focus on this year in the coming election? What opportunities do you think we’re going to have, given the presumed nominees on the R & D sides?

AD: Libertarians should focus on the economy because the economy wins and loses national elections. Plus, we have the right answer as a matter of empiricism.

I just read an article in Forbes earlier this week about how, after adjusting for inflation, 90% of Americans are worse off today than the population was in the 1970s. We are in terrible stagnation as a country. The anger that supports a Trump or a Sanders comes from people hurting financially. There are no jobs. Small businesses are collapsing at an accelerated rate. Everything is becoming more expensive. And the answer from Washington is to tax, spend, regulate, and fine our way into national bankruptcy.

Given the high disapproval ratings of both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, combined with people finally losing patience with the Washington way of doing things, we have an historic opportunity as Libertarians. This is our shot as Libertarians to push our way onto the national stage. Once there, we have to pitch to the general public that the last century of progressive socialist policies has caused all this pain. We need to return to free market and limited government ideas because that will lead us to prosperity. We tried it the statist way, now let’s try a different way.

If Libertarians can get the voting public to imagine a better America – one that comes from empowering them, not from empowering Federal politicians – that vision of hope and prosperity is how we get Americans to embrace liberty again.

AO: You say Libertarians should focus economically. Where do you feel certain social issues will fall in the election this year? Libertarians were ahead of the other parties on issues that are finally turning in the public eye: gay rights, marijuana. How do we best frame those ideological victories in order to benefit best from their recent popularity, when we were there first?

AD: Libertarians have been way out in front on important social issues, like equality for minority groups in the areas of marriage and criminal justice. It is something we should proudly state to the general voter. But rather than complain that we should get credit for being there first on issues like gay rights, we should focus on continuing to be leaders in social issues.

For example, we can lead in areas that impact a lot of people but are not being addressed by the political class. One important issue is the incarceration of huge segments of our (mostly minority) population, which is a human rights catastrophe and a strain on our budgets. Both Republicans and Democrats are failing in the national conversation addressing Black Lives Matter, the police, and the disparate impact our legal system is having on minority and impoverished neighborhoods.

I live in St. Louis in a predominantly black neighborhood. While I do not purport to be an expert on race relations, I have had conversations with my neighbors about it. I’ve sat on a jury in the city and talked with black jurors about how they feel about our police. They have told me stories. I have observed things myself within the justice system. Most people express frustration at the police, who they see as unfair and oppressive. These same people actually don’t want to see violence, crime, and anger ravaging their neighborhoods.

Libertarians should be the ones talking about criminal justice reform in common sense terms. We should reimagine our police as our friends who serve and protect. Instead, we have created an environment where the police have to enforce so many laws (violent and non-violent) that every citizen is a suspect. In turn, the citizens feel harassed and afraid of the police. We don’t have to be soft on crime. But not every problem needs to be solved with a SWAT team.

DEA enforcement is too heavy handed. I’m not in favor of legalizing marijuana because I smoke weed and make light of it. I don’t actually smoke. Rather, I’m in favor of legalizing marijuana because I’m aware of the millions of lives that have been ruined by crime, murder, and jail, as a result of prohibition laws. I’m aware that marijuana laws are inherently (and probably intentionally) racist. We need to put human faces on the outrageous toll our drug laws (and other laws) are having on our minority populations. We can ask minorities how they want the government to represent them, rather than oppress or pacify them.

Social issues always have some kind of relevance in an election. I think the winning move for Libertarians is to show leadership by discussing in a compassionate and common sense way solutions to thorny issues.

AO: In your work for ballot access and fair debate inclusion, what victories have you personally been involved with?

AD: Before I was General Counsel for Gov. Johnson, I was his Midwest Regional Director. In that role, I organized volunteers, fundraising, and events for thirteen states. While doing that, I got a call from Ron Nielson (a top advisor for Gov. Johnson) that ballot access was challenged in Iowa. It was a Friday evening. The campaign had been served with papers for a Monday morning hearing in Des Moines. Libertarian lawyers can be hard to find… and especially on a weekend… in Des Moines. I was in St. Louis and within driving distance. So I was promoted to counsel.

On the long drive up, I started calling reporters. I devised a plan to use media and the two party factions within Iowa to encourage the Secretary of State to “do the right thing.” I then gave myself a crash course in Iowa election law in a Best Western in the middle of a corn field. Before then, I knew nothing about ballot access laws, much less Iowa laws! Thankfully, Richard Winger was around to take my phone calls.

When I got to the hearing on Monday morning, I was greeted by lawyers flown in from Washington DC for the express purpose of disenfranchising our party. They sneered at me and wouldn’t shake my hand. My strategy worked out perfectly over the next three days.

I took great joy in winning that challenge… and several others that popped up immediately after that. For example, I helped with Pennsylvania, I went to Virginia, I helped with the appeals on Michigan and Oklahoma. Eventually, because we were winning so much, there were a couple other times where I was able to make a call at the mere threat of a challenge and quash it.

I am certain that there will be many lawsuits coming at us in the fall of 2016. I’m already on board to assist, even if I am also a candidate.

AO: Well, I hope this educates the public about you a bit just in time for the Libertarian Party National Convention this coming weekend. I know I said this was going to be 10 questions but here’s an extra — where should people go to learn more about you?

AD: To get to know me, and my background, better, please visit my campaign website at http://dearn2016.com. My team and I are adding new information daily.