Conservatives accept the government’s role in education and healthcare; Libertarians believe the government has no role at all. From Jason G. Hornberger at fff.org:
With his education and healthcare policies, President Trump is highlighting a major divide between conservatives and libertarians on both education and healthcare.
As everyone knows, Trump is doing his best to induce universities to abandon leftist concepts involving what is known as DEI — Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. He is doing this by threatening a cut-off of federal funds to such universities until they comply with his wishes, at which point he will restore the funding.
Trump’s strategy is working brilliantly. Most of the universities he has targeted have quickly abandoned their leftist principles in order to maintain themselves on the federal dole. In other words, they place a higher value on the dole than they do on their principles.
Conservatives love it. They have always hated DEI and so Trump continues to be their hero. They especially love his threat to cut off federal aid as a way to induce universities to change their policies.
Libertarians take a different position. We believe that there should be a total separation of education and the state, in the same way that our ancestors separated religion and state. We hold that the federal government (and the state governments) have no more business funding universities or telling universities how to run their affairs than it does funding churches or telling churches how to run their affairs.
Thus, under the libertarian philosophy, there would be no government funding of universities at all. Therefore, Trump could not threaten a cutoff of federal funds as a way to induce a university to change its policies because there would be no federal funds to cut off.
Tell me more about what the conservatives have actually conserved?
I’ll be napping in the tall grass during the wait.