Elections Gary Johnson at 12% (3% away from debates), potential game changer

[Level25Virgin]

Ron Paul < Gary Johnson << Bill Weld

Ron Paul is a fucking moron.

Holy shit do you have it exactly backwards.

Wanting people to be able to practice their right of self determination in multifarious ways=fucking moron?

Not wanting to send American men and women to kill foreigners and be killed by them and borrow trillions of dollars doing it=fucking moron?

Having a better educational and philosophical understanding than any candidate you can name=fucking moron?

For those of us who have an even slightly deeper understanding of the world than the Fox/CNN charade, I think we can easily see who's the fucking moron.

As far as the OP Johnson is the lesser of three evils, but he's a vastly inferior intellectual lightweight compared to the libertarians and anarchists who forged the way before him.

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

Reading this is demoralizing.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...didates-lose-legal-fight-to-get-into-debates/

Life being what it is, voting in primaries might be underrated. In a negotiation, one thing I'd go after is everybody being able to vote in any party primary or that party wouldn't get news coverage on publicly licensed airwaves. Or mandating public airwaves give equal, objectively factual, coverage of the top 3-5 candidates. Something. Fuck.

 

[Raiman]

For everyone that wants to throw a wrench into the political system we have, why vote Trump when Johnson could do the same thing in that he isn't a member of either party and seems to be a reasonable man? Wouldn't it accomplish the same thing for you? Or is Trump more attractive because of the wall and whatever else? (I say whatever else because he doesn't seem to ever talk about actual policies he believes in.)

Serious question.

 

[Jack V Savage]

How is a truly free market worse then corporatism?

Do you think corporate America would enjoy having to compete on a truly flat playing field?

Can you explain how slashing the safety net, reducing consumer protections, and allowing businesses to externalize costs onto the public leads to a "truly flat playing field" or a "truly free market"? Remember that right-wing "libertarianism" was literally invented by business lobbyists.

 

[Blackened]

Can you explain how slashing the safety net, reducing consumer protections, and allowing businesses to externalize costs onto the public leads to a "truly flat playing field" or a "truly free market"? Remember that right-wing "libertarianism" was literally invented by business lobbyists.

Any evidence to support this claim?

 

[Jack V Savage]

Any evidence to support this claim?

Yeah, sure. I mean, it's common knowledge (oddly, it seems like self-proclaimed right-wing "libertarians" generally are the people who are least curious about the history of "libertarian" thought) but here:

Look at the history of the FEE:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_for_Economic_Education

If you don't like Wiki, you can Google them for more.

Here's a left-wing source that nonetheless reports pretty solidly:

http://www.alternet.org/visions/tru...erica-phony-ideology-promote-corporate-agenda

Again, you can do your own checking of any facts in there that you have questions about.

Here's a quote from that piece (and you can confirm all the info on other sources):

The FEE is generally regarded as “the first libertarian think-tank” as Reason’s Brian Doherty calls it in his book “Radicals For Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern Libertarian Movement” (2007). As the Buchanan Committee discovered, the Foundation for Economic Education was the best-funded conservative lobbying outfit ever known up to that time, sponsored by a Who’s Who of US industry in 1946.

A partial list of FEE’s original donors in its first four years— a list discovered by the Buchanan Committee — includes: The Big Three auto makers GM, Chrysler and Ford; top oil majors including Gulf Oil, Standard Oil, and Sun Oil; major steel producers US Steel, National Steel, Republic Steel; major retailers including Montgomery Ward, Marshall Field and Sears; chemicals majors Monsanto and DuPont; and other Fortune 500 corporations including General Electric, Merrill Lynch, Eli Lilly, BF Goodrich, ConEd, and more.

 

[Blackened]

Yeah, sure. I mean, it's common knowledge (oddly, it seems like self-proclaimed right-wing "libertarians" generally are the people who are least curious about the history of "libertarian" thought) but here:

Look at the history of the FEE:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_for_Economic_Education

If you don't like Wiki, you can Google them for more.

Here's a left-wing source that nonetheless reports pretty solidly:

http://www.alternet.org/visions/tru...erica-phony-ideology-promote-corporate-agenda

Again, you can do your own checking of any facts in there that you have questions about.

Here's a quote from that piece (and you can confirm all the info on other sources):

Also from wikipedia, Mencken wrote in 1923: "My literary theory, like my politics, is based chiefly upon one idea, to wit, the idea of freedom. I am, in belief, a libertarian of the most extreme variety."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-libertarianism

It appears a lot of right-libertarian ideas predated the 1950's sources you cited as their beginnings.

 

[Jack V Savage]

Also from wikipedia, Mencken wrote in 1923: "My literary theory, like my politics, is based chiefly upon one idea, to wit, the idea of freedom. I am, in belief, a libertarian of the most extreme variety."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-libertarianism

It appears a lot of right-libertarian ideas predated the 1950's sources you cited as their beginnings.

The term "libertarian" predates right-wing libertarian ideology, which was mostly developed in that period.

 

[Blackened]

The term "libertarian" predates right-wing libertarian ideology, which was mostly developed in that period.

I'm aware.

 

[MyOwnSummer12]

Just what America needs a libertarian.

Except Gary isn't much of one.

 

[MyOwnSummer12]

Johnson is a BLMer? Oh, no. That won't do.

I'm assuming he's an open border guy, too? I know that's a libertarian tenet, but it won't work so well if you're the only country in the world with an open border. Oh, and if you still have pretty generous welfare programs in place, yeah...

Not a libertarian tenet. There's much disagreement. You can't have open borders and a welfare state. And many libertarians believe open borders would violate property rights.

 

[MyOwnSummer12]

Holy shit do you have it exactly backwards.

Wanting people to be able to practice their right of self determination in multifarious ways=fucking moron?

Not wanting to send American men and women to kill foreigners and be killed by them and borrow trillions of dollars doing it=fucking moron?

Having a better educational and philosophical understanding than any candidate you can name=fucking moron?

For those of us who have an even slightly deeper understanding of the world than the Fox/CNN charade, I think we can easily see who's the fucking moron.

As far as the OP Johnson is the lesser of three evils, but he's a vastly inferior intellectual lightweight compared to the libertarians and anarchists who forged the way before him.

I couldn't agree more with your assessment. Gary seems to have next to no intellectual curiosity about the philosophy for which he's the standard-barer. This has been the topic of discussion in many libertarian circles.

 

[Jack V Savage]

Not a libertarian tenet. There's much disagreement. You can't have open borders and a welfare state. And many libertarians believe open borders would violate property rights.

Collective property rights of the nation? Doesn't sound very libertarian, but right-wing libertarianism is an incoherent ideology anyway.

 

[Possum Jenkins]

Also from wikipedia, Mencken wrote in 1923: "My literary theory, like my politics, is based chiefly upon one idea, to wit, the idea of freedom. I am, in belief, a libertarian of the most extreme variety."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-libertarianism

It appears a lot of right-libertarian ideas predated the 1950's sources you cited as their beginnings.

Whether it was the 1950s or 1920s, the most important point is that it was invented and popularized by business lobbyists. That's irrefutable.

And apart from its foundations, it has always been most fervently supported by sectors of big business. Gotta wonder why that is.

 

[VivaRevolution]

Can you explain how slashing the safety net, reducing consumer protections, and allowing businesses to externalize costs onto the public leads to a "truly flat playing field" or a "truly free market"? Remember that right-wing "libertarianism" was literally invented by business lobbyists.

Can you make a case that this isn't already going on?

I mean bill clinton expanded or cut the social safety net?

Progress is made in the creation of a consumer protection agency, but only someone the corporatists approve of can run it right?

Externalize costs to the consumer? Planned obsolescence is the status quo today. We are far passed externalized costs.

 

[Jack V Savage]

Can you make a case that this isn't already going on?

There is some externalization of costs going on now, but the position of people like Paul is that it should be prevented less. Likewise, the safety net is flimsy, but it exists, and Paul would like to reduce it. Etc.

I mean bill clinton expanded or cut the social safety net?

You could say both (overall size increased, declines among specific groups, though even those weren't first-choice options for him).

Progress is made in the creation of a consumer protection agency, but only someone the corporatists approve of can run it right?

The solution to that kind of thing is the exact opposite of what you're talking about, no? Republicans have majorities in both houses of Congress, and they don't agree that it is progress. If you think we should have a stronger consumer protection agency, the last thing you want to do is vote for someone who opposes it.

Externalize costs to the consumer? Planned obsolescence is the status quo today. We are far passed externalized costs.

Thinking most especially of carbon emissions, though generally avoiding that kind of thing is why we have regulations.

 

[VivaRevolution]

There are some externalization of costs going on now, but the position of people like Paul is that it should be prevented less. Likewise, the safety net is flimsy, but it exists, and Paul would like to reduce it. Etc.



You could say both (overall size increased, declines among specific groups, though even those weren't first-choice options for him).



The solution to that kind of thing is the exact opposite of what you're talking about, no? Republicans have majorities in both houses of Congress, and they don't agree that it is progress. If you think we should have a stronger consumer protection agency, the last thing you want to do is vote for someone who opposes it.



Thinking most especially of carbon emissions, though generally avoiding that kind of thing is why we have regulations.

And this really is the crux of our disagreement here. I ask you what your plan is to take back 60% majorities in the house and senate, so that real progress can be made, and the response seems to be the same play book Democrats have been playing out of since Carter, will continue.

I offer a different path. Let them fail. That is how you get back control of the house and senate, and create the people power needed to overwhelm opposition.

 

[Greoric]

There are some externalization of costs going on now, but the position of people like Paul is that it should be prevented less... by government

Fixed. Government doesn't need to be the one that establishes a check against companies externalizing costs in the same way they're not not commensurate with a social safety net. That's something people of your stripe don't grasp or refuse to grasp.

 

[Jack V Savage]

Fixed. Government doesn't need to be the one that establishes a check against companies externalizing costs in the same way they're not not commensurate with a social safety net. That's something people of your stripe don't grasp or refuse to grasp.

Well, that's the only way it has ever worked or could be expected to work. But cool fantasy world, bro. Someday, right?

 

[Trotsky]

Holy shit do you have it exactly backwards.

Wanting people to be able to practice their right of self determination in multifarious ways=fucking moron?

Not wanting to send American men and women to kill foreigners and be killed by them and borrow trillions of dollars doing it=fucking moron?

Having a better educational and philosophical understanding than any candidate you can name=fucking moron?

For those of us who have an even slightly deeper understanding of the world than the Fox/CNN charade, I think we can easily see who's the fucking moron.

As far as the OP Johnson is the lesser of three evils, but he's a vastly inferior intellectual lightweight compared to the libertarians and anarchists who forged the way before him.

lol

Congrats on not watching cable news. I am glad to see that you are simply uninformed as opposed to being misinformed.

I'd just like to hear a greater fleshing out of this position. I always hear the generic term "extermination" from Leftists like you, then when pushed to go deeper into it you disappear, which is probably what you're going to do as well.

So you'd like to argue semantics to undermine actions towards indigenous people that are objectively atrocious? How else would you categorize the raping, enslaving, and mass execution of a people, given respite only when they were banished and marginalized from their homes and from resources. Hell, even Hitler acknowledged the extermination of the Native Americans as a remarkably efficient genocide. In three years alone, Columbus oversaw the death of 5 million indigenous Caribbeans and had countless mass executions by mass hangings and roasting of Natives.

In the century following European settlement, the Native population had been reduced by 80%, and now has been reduced by more than 95% from the original 12 million Native inhabitants. I don't know what else you would like to call it.