As I've traveled around the country making speeches at college campuses, I've noticed that very few young people want war. In fact, I'd say that 90 percent of the people I come into contact with are opposed to new wars. So, the question is this: If so few people seem to want war, why do we keep getting so many of them?

The answer lies on how politics works in Washington, DC, and it lies in what kinds of people want political power.

Thanks to public apathy, combined with aggressive politicians, we get wars, even when so much of the population doesn't want them.

The ordinary people — the ones who suffer the most from war and who pay for it — aren't the ones making policy.

It may be true that a large majority of the people don't want war. But it's unfortunately also true that the minority that does want war is especially influential in Washington.

Why It's So Hard to Oppose War in DC

I've seen a lot of people with good intentions come to Washington. They come thinking they're going to support peace and freedom, and they'll stand up to the people who keep pushing through new wars and who keep attacking our freedoms. But, they soon came to believe that in order to do the good things they had in mind, they must become powerful in Washington first. And then they decide it's necessary to compromise and to be "moderate," and they end up going along with the pro-war policies of those who are already very powerful.

And this is one of the reasons that I'm opposed to the idea of being "moderate" in Washington.

I think that being moderate is a sacrifice of principle. When it comes to setting things straight in politics, a better strategy is to work with coalitions. There are a lot of people who may not be true libertarians, but they have a set of principles in which they'd like to see a lot less killing and a lot less war. So, I see no problem with the Dennis Kuciniches of the world, because those people have principles that can help us forward our pro-peace views.

We don't have to sacrifice our principles to work with other pro-peace candidates. But when the moderates come together, they often end up sacrificing any pro-peace convictions they might have had.

Electing the "Right People" Won't Fix Things

In fact, the reality in Washington should make it clear to us now that simply "sending the right people" to Washington isn't going to solve the problem.

I think the Founding Fathers tried to do that. They tried to set up rules that would keep evil people from gaining too much power.

But, I think the Founders basically failed. To have been successful, they would have needed to have designed a constitution that is much more powerful in limiting government power than it is.

Jefferson understood that the Constitution was too weak and that it didn't provide ways for really fighting unrestrained growth in government power in Washington.

Relying on the Constitution and moral politicians hasn't worked. Clearly, we need to do something different.