This article is part of a series created to help voters become familiar with the candidates running for the West Virginia House of Delegates. Each candidate was asked the same six questions, and we are sharing their responses exactly as they were given to us. This series aims to provide a clear and direct look into each candidate’s views on issues that matter to the people of West Virginia.

This article’s focus is on Craig Carpenter II, the Libertarian Party candidate for the West Virginia House of Delegates, representing District 27. Let’s dive into his responses to learn more about his priorities for the state.

1. What is your position on religious freedom, and how does your faith and role as delegate work together?

 “I am a lifelong attender of Grace Gospel Church, and everything I do in politics will be with my religious convictions in mind. I am reminded of the C.S. Lewis quote describing his faith as the sun by which he sees all other things.

2. Some believe public schools should be the only option for parents. What is your stance on a parent’s right to choose the best education for their child?

“The parents are the steward of their children's education. Only in extreme circumstances should the State exercise its own stewardship contrary to the parents, and always in a careful, passive manner. Alternative education, or perceived neglect of education, should never be considered a choice the State can override.”

3. The HOPE Scholarship allows parents to align their child’s education with their values. With the program set to expand to all K-12 students in two years, what actions would you take to support its growth?

“I fully support the Hope Scholarship and would support its growth till all public education is a matter of vouchers.”

4. Do you have any K-12 children or grandchildren in school? If so, did they attend public or private school, or homeschool in West Virginia?

“All of my school-age nieces and nephews are enrolled in WVCEA schools or are homeschooled, and I anticipate I will do the same with my children.”

5. Please describe your professional background and why it equips you to lead West Virginia effectively.

“I graduated from Grace Christian School in 2018, received a Bachelor’s of Computer Science from Marshall University in 2021, and am currently a software engineer.”

6. What does conservatism mean to you, and how would you differentiate it from liberal values on the three most pressing challenges facing our state?

“I would say that I have both conservative and liberal values in the most intellectually precise senses of those words. I am by political temperament a Burkean conservative, and believe in a very conservative, "fundamentalist" moral Law; but I am also temperamentally classically liberal when it comes to political science and sociology. The world would be a much better place if our Republicans were more conservative and our Democrats more classically liberal.

An example of policy that would benefit from these combined approaches would be fiscal policy. Fiscal and Burkean conservatism tell us that our spending and lending is unwise, and classically liberal economics tells us that the same spending and lending is unsustainable. Thus, it should be no surprise that my position is that we should rein in government spending and lending.

As far as the addiction crisis goes, I see it as a spiritual crisis more than anything else. The vice of hard drugs is an ugly sin that many have fallen into, but the Bible tells me that I am no better a wretch. Conservative thinkers such as G.K. Chesterton tell me that we must be careful not to see it as a political problem that can be easily reformed with new laws. Chesterton wrote in his column for the London Daily News that such an attitude is "quite a dim stage of barbarism", an "inverted form of fetish worship". Likewise, the classical liberal in me tells me that heavy-handed, thoughtless prohibition programs are also likely to make the problem worse. When you create a black market for heroin, it slides down the slope of non-regulation into worse products, like fentanyl.

My response to the problem of the economy is likely my most conservative and controversial position. I believe that we shouldn't be afraid of a shrinking population. I love Central Appalachia's yeoman tendencies of cheap land, low density, and difficult terrain, and I don't want hundreds of millions of dollars of money stolen from Mountaineers given to companies like Form Energy in the hopes that they'll hire a few hundred men. As I wrote in an essay ten months ago, "West Virginia in its Platonic form would cease to exist in a world where the state population approaches that of California". The focus of lawmakers should not be to see the various chart lines go up, but ensure that society is allowed to stabilize, even if that means their worshipped tax revenues go down.”