Spencer Schneier
       Staff Writer

Last week, I had the opportunity to speak to U.S. Senate candidate Sean Haugh.

If you haven’t heard of him, that’s quite understandable. He is the Libertarian Party candidate, and as he explained to me, he began his senate campaign in 2014 because he thought it was ridiculous the party wasn’t going to run anybody.

Haugh received a bit of a bump in 2014 when the Washington Post ran an article on him featuring his YouTube channel where he drinks craft beers and discusses his platform.

The thing that impressed me the most about Haugh was that it was clear that his down-to-earth persona is not just for the cameras and the press, but rather that he is a genuinely nice person who cares about people before anything else.

One of the first things he stressed to me in our interview was that he does not think in ideological terms first.

“Pretty much everybody who has an ideology, thinks in those terms first, rather than in the human terms of how does it actually affect people,” Haugh said.

He continued, “I feel strongly that my ideas aren’t worth anything unless they actually help people.”

This more reasonable approach has led to criticism in the past, including a Huffington Post editorial by Grover Norquist that questioned how conservative he really was about spending, as in 2014 Haugh criticized the rejection of Medicaid expansion dollars as well as stating that stagnant teacher wages are something that neither side should be proud of.

Haugh emphasized his core values being Libertarian.

“You scratch below the surface, and you’ll find 100 percent Libertarian Party platform,” he said.

He also found the manipulation by donors backing both Kay Hagan and Thom Tillis to be amusing, saying, “A lot of the things people did in the last campaign to manipulate me totally backfired, and only helped me.”

Haugh echoed the sentiments of Bernie Sanders on issues like underemployment, saying that people are upset that their money doesn’t go as far as it used to, and that people have to work multiple jobs now just to make ends meet (Haugh personally works two jobs and said he was considering picking up a third).

One interesting point he made in this line of thought was how meaningless most employment statistics are at this point, as they do not account well for things like underemployment. He also made the point that Democrats and Republicans have an interest in acting like there is nothing wrong with the economy, as they would essentially have to indict their entire careers to do so.

As Haugh said, candidates such as Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump and himself can all make these attacks because they have not built their careers on top of these notions.

Haugh then described libertarianism as having two rules: “Don’t hit people and don’t take their stuff.” He referred to these as “playground rules.”

I think this is a really good point: the Libertarian ideology can be best described by playground rules. If one applies it to pretty much any issue, they come to a sensible conclusion.

Most other laws are largely arbitrary, and people tend to find them divisive. Most people agree that assault, murder, rape and other crimes of violence are bad. Most people agree that theft is wrong. Really, in any society, people are going to agree on that, with the exception of communal societies, but I doubt they’re going to have any kind of complicated legislation on anything.

The funny thing is that Haugh and many Libertarians, despite being portrayed as unreasonable and far-out, are often the reasonable ones through this scope. If one simply agrees that violence and theft are bad, it’s hard to justify the actions of many mainstream politicians.

“We can’t live in a society where people try to solve political and social issues with violence. It starts with the federal government, which sets such a bad example as a purveyor of violence in so many ways,” Haugh said.

He is highly critical of the War on Drugs, attributing it to many of the problems in Central America that have led to mass immigration. He has been critical of the militarization of the police force as well. Also, he’s been very critical of the War on Terror, arguing that it is being fought as a way to line the pockets of corporate special interests. He noted Dick Cheney’s role in launching the Iraq War as particularly notable in this line of thought.

Going back to his central theme of focusing on people, he said that he likes speaking to veterans.

“They know the cost of war; they’ve seen it up front,” Haugh said.

One of the defining characteristics of Haugh is how he consistently provides real-world examples of how policies affect people. He doesn’t settle for hypotheticals, but rather he wants to show that many big government policies have a negative impact on people, and he can find examples of that.

He argued that the problem with involving government to solve a problem, such as welfare, is that it will become bureaucratic, inefficient and corrupt without fully solving the issue.

When asked about more current events, he was highly critical of Richard Burr and those who believe that Apple should be forced to create measures to break down encryption, noting that most cybersecurity experts are warning against such a measure, including federal government employees.

While he was cautious to attack a man who had just died, he said that he felt enough time had passed to criticize Justice Scalia. Noting this is the first time he has been asked since Scalia died and that he has a policy of waiting a few days before commenting after someone’s death, he had strong words regarding the former justice.

“Antonin Scalia never met a police state he didn’t like,” Haugh said.

It’s funny that on these two issues it becomes really clear what the difference is between Republicans, who are big government almost universally, and Libertarians. Haugh does not want the government infringing on civil liberties, whereas Republicans like Richard Burr have supported policies like the police state, and ending digital privacy.

The other thing that really stands out about Haugh is how politicians can’t make ad hominem attacks when he takes a position against a policy like minimum wage laws. After all, as he stressed, he is a pizza deliveryman.

Candidates can’t behave as they do toward neo-conservatives who propose cuts to such programs. It’s one thing to criticize Ted Cruz for it when his wife is a Goldman Sachs executive; it’s another to criticize a guy working two jobs to make ends meet.

Ultimately, the following statement best sums up Haugh’s positions:

“I’m too busy running my own life; I don’t really have time to run anybody else’s. Besides, I think you’re the expert on how to run your life,” Haugh said.