Gary Johnson

[9thdoctor]

It seems all the candidates are getting their own OL threads, I heard this program on Saturday, so here goes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZ_Udfhkr-k

[Kat]

It seems all the candidates are getting their own OL threads, I heard this program on Saturday, so here goes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZ_Udfhkr-k

<iframe width="560" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/GETQYNse3iY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I only caught half of the Stossel show last night and saw the rest of it on youtube today. I hope CNN changes their mind and lets him participate in the NH debate.

I really like Gary Johnson a lot. I agree with him on pretty much everything and only wish he had a chance. He is socially liberal and fiscally conservative. Unfortunately, I don't think he will get very far in the republican primary because of his stance on legalizing marijuana and being pro-choice for the first few months. He is also in favor of gay marriage, which is a big plus in my book. He doesn't go to church and his favorite book is The Fountainhead. I think Gary Johnson is probably the closest thing to an Objectivist that we will see in this election cycle. Unfortunately, he is pretty unknown and doesn't fire up people like Sarah Palin or Herman Cain. Gary Johnson did make a visit to the Chicago Tea Party a couple of months ago, unfortunately, that was the meeting I missed. I do want to know more about his foreign policy, also. So far, Gary Johnson is the one that is very likely to get my precious vote....for what it's worth.

Kat

[Fred Cole]

I found Gary Johnson like four months ago courtesy of the folks at Reason and Cato, both of whom have big hard-ons for Gary Johnson.

With good reason!

Gary Johnson is indeed as close as we'll get to an Objectivist this cycle. He's also a much more plausible candidate for PotUS than Ron Paul.

And I admire boldness. The man talks about marijuana legalization, which is a taboo subject, and he summitted Everest.

Can he win?

Too early to say.

Presidential cycles are loooooong, a lot can happen.

How many people thought McCain was toast in July 2007?

How many people thought Hillary was a mortal lock in Sept 2007?

How many people thought Dean was a mortal lock in Sept of 2003?

How many people thought GWB was toast in July 2004?

So, it's not implausible he could get the nomination, just highly unlikely. Like hitting the 40 to 1 on Big Six. Not impossible, just highly unlikely.

[studiodekadent]

I also agree Johnson is the best choice.

Unlike Ron Paul, he lacks that annoying Paleocon streak.

He's a Friedmanite moderate libertarian (like his economic policy advisor Jeffrey Miron) so he does have mainstream appeal and would appeal to those that are slightly put off by hardcore radicalism.

Also, he's a foreign policy noninterventionist; too many Objectivists got a hard-on for interventionism during the War On Terror (yes, even TAS unfortunately), treating the WOT as a conflict in a romantic novel and being seduced by rationalistic visions of remaking the world (there was also frequent misuse of the Objectivist theory of history; applying it in a rationalist and methodologically collectivist fashion).

I think a Johnson/Paul ticket would be the best way to avoid splitting the libertarian vote.

Still, I admit this is an unlikely outcome.

[blackhorse]

I like Gary Johnson, however I think that he may be a bit too Paulish on foreign policy (almost complete non-intervention). In foreign policy there are two extremes; the total non-interventionists Ron Paul side and the too much interventionists Mitt Romney side. I do think that Johnson is a bit more hawkish on FP, but after reading his FP issues on his website it appears that he would grant enemy combatants what Obama is granting them; miranda rights! Other than his dove-ish FP and his rights to enemy combatants, I think GJ is an excellent candidate. Am I wrong here? So far, I like Bachmann the most with GJ in a close second.

[Fred Cole]

Problem with Bachman is that she mixes solid free market economic policies with Christianity. Presidents do a lot of things and one of them is appointments, so if you're okay with a bunch of fundementalist Christians being appointed to thousands of political appointments, ok then.

Johnson is straight down the line libertarian, and he realized (unlike Ron Paul) that talking about legalizing heroine won't play with the electorate.

And Johnson, unlike Bachman or Paul, is a successful two term governor. Bachmam and Paul are congressmen, that makes them too easy to dismiss as cranks. There has only been two times when a congressman has been elected PotUS. Garfield and Lincoln. Its just exremely improbable.

And frankly, would you want a congressman without any executive experiance elected president? Look how badly the current occupant, who utterly lacked executive experiance, is floundering. There were only two Senators elected PotUS in the 20th century: Harding & Kennedy. Harding had been a governor, so that leave us with Kennedy. He had a huge executive failure as PotUS (Bay of Pigs) and one moderate success that was almost a nuclear war, and you can credit that success to his father having been a diplomat.

We're not talking about a governorship here, we're talking about President of the United States. Executive experiance matters a fuck ton.

[Kat]

I still like Gary Johnson the best of the candidates declared so far. I thought he had maybe dropped out because he was visibly absent in the Iowa debate and straw poll. He is still in the race and focusing on New Hampshire now. He's pretty libertarian and doesn't come off as kooky as Ron Paul and I agree with him more on social issues like gay marriage and abortion. Gary Johnson's chances are slim and he doesn't have much name recognition or campaign funding so it is highly unlikely he will get the nomination.

Right now I don't think any of the candidates in the field can beat Obama. (Maybe things are different outside Chicago, but he is loved here.) Sarah Palin is a star and may have a chance if/when she decides to run. Herman Cain is also a good candidate and can get people pretty fired up too. Bachmann and Ron Paul won the straw poll but I don't think either can win the primary or general election against Obama. They simply have the most loyal followers. I have a problem with Bachmann on the gay issue and Ron Paul on Middle East policy so they are both disqualified in my book.... unless the choice is between them or Obama.

btw - what is Paleocon? It's the $50 word of the day.

Kat

[Selene]

I did not know the actual definition, so here it is:

Paleoconservative:

Contrary to what the idiot 'Realpolitik' added, Paleoconservatives or 'old conservatives' are not white supremacists or white anything-ists. Paleocons are simply Constitutional conservatives who believe in small government, low spending, national sovereignty, and maximum personal freedom. A neoconservative, by contrast, is simply a liberal Republican. In order to properly illustrate what paleoconservativism is, we must draw parallels between paleoconservatives and neoconservatives (aka "the Republican base").

A paleoconservative believes foremost in the Constitution as the highest law of the land. Any law or measure that rejects, misinterprets or by-passes the Constitution is unacceptable. Neocons, on the other hand, can frequently be heard making statements like "The Constitution isn't a suicide note" to justify unconstitutional or Constitution-bending actions. Mind, this only applies in the neocon mind if the actions are undertaken by a Republican president or congress.

A paleoconservative is a firm believer in the Jeffersonian view of smaller, less powerful government. Neocons claim to believe in smaller government, but frequently overlook that in 8 years, a Republican president and congress doubled the size and cost of government. The main difference between a neocon and a paleocon is that the neocons will give you a pass on this behavior as long as you have an '®' beside your name, where paleocons will not. Most paleocons are in favor of repealing the Income Tax as a good incentive for our government to spend less and reward achievement rather than punish it. The neocon has given very little thought how to curb government spending or why it's important - they just like when someone promises to, preferably in between clever digs at Democratic senators.

A paleoconservative believes in hard currency and a balanced budget. The framers of the Constitution called for United States currency to be based on precious metals to avoid a devalued currency and inflation such as we have today. Paleocons would also like to balance the budget before we borrow more money from China than our grandchildren's grandchildren could ever possibly repay. Neocons assume that this is a non-issue because of the Bush tax cuts. The budget is already balanced and we have 0 national debt because a Republican president would certainly demand that it be so. And even if said President did not, "it's not that big of a deal". And even if it was a big deal, not wanting China to own this country is something only liberals worry about. It is of little importance to the neocon that pork-barrel spending also doubled under their president, because fiscal responsibility takes a backseat to party politics in in the mind of the neocon.

A paleoconservative takes a somewhat more liberal stance on social issues. Most paleocons frown on the War on Drugs, it being mainly a hole to pour taxpayer money down. The Constitution is a check on government power, not individual liberty. Neocons see the Constitution as being inadequate since there's nothing in there damning drugs or homosexuals, and they don't like that the only thing the Constitution says about a national religion is that having one is forbidden.

A paleoconservative believes that good fences make good neighbors. It is interpreted, primarily by liberals, as racism that paleocons want a border fence, but the truth is that we just want to know who is here, why they came, and what they're doing. We also like the idea of being able to turn off the proverbial faucet if we want. Here again, we differ from the neocons. Being that a 2-term president, even under massive pressure to do so, did not fence the border nor take any meaningful immigration action, neocons conclude that that's all right because the president is a Republican. If the United States suffered another terrorist attack, and the perpetrators turned out to be aliens who entered the country illegally after 9/11, your average neocon would immediately begin searching for ways to blame former President Clinton. You can sum up the overall neocon political philosophy with "Republicans good, Democrats bad."

Paleoconservatives believe that our military should be powerful, but should only be used when the United States is threatened. Our forefathers warned us against foreign entanglements, but their advice is lost on the neocon. The neocons are pro-Iraq War, pro-Iran War, pro-North Korea War, and pro-Syria War, even though these four nations combined would have little hope against a United States attack. A paleocon believes that if the United States would simply control its borders and immigration, we would have little to fear from terrorists. Neocons live in fear of being branded 'anti-American', and will get behind any meaningless conflict to prove they're not.

A paleoconservative believes that the Republican party has semi-failed socially, and failed titanically fiscally, and usually votes third party. A neocon would rather see their grandchildren starve to death before voting Libertarian or Constitution Party. After all, a vote for third party is a vote for a Democrat, and remember, "Republicans good, Democrats bad" is the only acceptable political stance.

The paleoconservative believes in a diet rich in vitamins, minerals and other nutrients. The neocon subsists almost entirely on talk radio, particularly Rush Limbaugh which is where they get their "anti-war = anti-American" 'ideas'.

Finally, a paleoconservative is very wary of foreign allies, treaties and allegiances as they can breed serious conflicts of interest, and possible erosion of national sovereignty. Neocons are with us on this point, for the most part, as we would both like to see the United States out of the UN, but here again, neocons will happily look the other way when a Republican goes astray. In 2005, our President signed a treaty under the guise of 'fair trade' that will eventually merge the United States with Mexico and Canada creating a "North American Union". Your average paleocon wants America to be self-existing and self-governing, but that is of secondary importance to the neocon. As long as you blame former President Clinton for the War of 1812, America can burn.

[Selene]

Kat:

As to who can beat O'biwan the boy prince and wanna be dictator...:virtually any of them with the right VP:

Romney, unfortunately can and will beat him;

Perry - Rubio will beat him in a monumental landslide;

Perry - Bachman will beat him convincingly, but I doubt she would take the V.P. slot;

Perry - Christie will landslide him also, but they might kill each other before election day;

Bachman - Rubio would beat him, probably 52-48;

Paul - Rubio would be an incredible election, but I do not think they could win;

Cain, Gingrich, Johnson all have their own strengths...Cain is a class act; Gingrich is just flat out brilliant; Johnson is the closest to a pro-freedom agenda who actually holds national office. None of them have a chance at the nomination.

Adam

[studiodekadent]

Adam,

I must disagree with your definition of Paleocon.

"Paleocon" as I use the term means a combination of free market economics, non-interventionist foreign policy, and (unfortunately) social conservatism at the state level. They also tend towards nativism/'national identity' as well as religious worldviews, but these are nonessentials.

Now, Paleocons and Libertarians generally agree about the role and scope of the federal government. This is where paleocons and libertarians have common interests.

However, at the state level, their interests become opposed on social policy.

This is often because of underlying philosophical differences. The paleocon worldview isn't a product of the Enlightenment but it tends to be based in a mixture of Christian conservatism and romantic nationalism. Often, they want the feds out because they want States to be able to hang the gays and teach creationism etc. etc.

Paleocons don't believe in natural individual rights; if they did then you wouldn't have Ron Paul opposing the Incorporation Doctrine. Paleocons are fine when States violate individual rights, just not when the Feds do it.

Take a standard religious conservative, subtract the warmongering, improve the understanding of economics, and you have a Paleocon.

Now, Paleocons are clearly better than standard religious conservatives, and they are useful when it comes to restraining the Feds.

But philosophically, they are farm-romanticizing blood-and-soil nationalists (sans the warmongering) that love their country music because its music about "the pro-America parts of America" (to quote Palin) and cling to their bibles and traditions because they have no real love for individual reason.

Yes, I know I wrote the above in somewhat uncharitable terms.

[Selene]

I plead the fifth (5th)!!!! I should have provided a link.

Urban Dictionary Definition <<<<this is the definition in the prior post.

And here is the Wiki here.

Edited August 15, 2011 by Selene

[blackhorse]

I have withdrawn my support for Gary Johnson because of his support of gay marriage. My reason; it opens up the virtual Pandora's box such as marriage between humans and animals or humans and machines ad nauseum. That is anarchic morality. I am an Objectivist because I believe in biological identity and morality qua reason.

[9thdoctor]

I have withdrawn my support for Gary Johnson because of his support of gay marriage. My reason; it opens up the virtual Pandora's box such as marriage between humans and animals or humans and machines ad nauseum. That is anarchic morality. I am an Objectivist because I believe in biological identity and morality qua reason.

As slippery slopes go, you feel this one's so treacherous? This is goofy stuff, IMO.

I don't understand why you post this, Gary Johnson's candidacy has pretty well petered out.

[Selene]

Oh no! Barney Frank took his peter!

[Peter]

blackhorse wrote:

I have withdrawn my support for Gary Johnson because of his support of gay marriage. My reason; it opens up the virtual Pandora's box such as marriage between humans and animals or humans and machines ad nauseam. That is anarchic morality. I am an Objectivist because I believe in biological identity and morality qua reason.

end quote

Adam responded:

Oh no! Barney Frank took his peter.

end quote

Ixnay with the Peter jokes Adam.

Wow. Such vehemence from blackhorse. We were just talking about this on another thread, so I will repeat myself.

The Ayn Rand Institute’s stance on gay marriage is analogous to the issue of *property rights involving slaves.* I find that argument invalid.

Peter Reidy once responded to this argument by saying:

The problem I see is one that someone in the Peikoff circle (Binswanger, I think) raised: gay marriage would amount to an ex post facto rewriting of millions of wills, trusts, contracts, insurance policies, employee benefits policies and the like. People made these agreements in good faith, and abrogating them is a serious and questionable move . . . The comeback to this may be that the same goes for the abolition of slavery. Presumably wills and pending deals went up in smoke, people lost assets overnight, heirs were left high and dry - yet nobody says this was a reason to stay with slavery . . . You could patch this up with legislation to the effect that if an employee came to work, a will was signed, etc., before the marriage legislation took effect, the old rules apply, but from now on, these marriages are as good as any others.

end quote

To Blackhorse and youse guys at ARI, our gay brothers and sisters are not slaves, but they are denied equal protection under the law. Hospital Rights dramatizes this issue in a way that persons who oppose “gay marriage” for moral reasons can empathize. Who can make decisions for you if you are incapacitated? Who can come into your recovery room after an operation when visitors are limited? If an ill person wants the caregiver to be the person with whom they are in a committed relationship, then their partner should be the one first allowed in. This can even affect people who are straight. A woman may be in the hospital and she wants her boyfriend to come into her recovery room after her operation. However, her family only allows “blood relatives” in, not the person who takes care of her.

No Objectivist thinks a *slave* is a valid piece of *property.* No Objectivist should advocate anything less than full protection under the law for all American citizens.

Blackhorse wrote:

It opens up the virtual Pandora's box such as marriage between humans and animals or humans and machines ad nauseam. That is anarchic morality. I am an Objectivist because I believe in biological identity and morality qua reason.

End quote

I *believe* in reality. The term *biological identity* as you are using it, disregards the human mind which is also a key part of biological identity. There are aspects of our brain’s natures that are hardwired just as our body parts are hard wired.

Consider this. Straight people like you or I are attracted to potential mates for their child bearing or nurturing “worthiness.” Men look for facial symmetry, adequate mammary glands for our future children’s sustenance (Her eyes are up here. Stop staring at her bosoms!), and at least a ten inch difference between a woman’s waist and hips, among other things. Disgustingly putting it, this makes a woman worth *doing.*

Women look for the same sort of reverse, male-engineered characteristics and also for the ability for a man to remain loyal to his family and to provide for his family.

This is our biological nature. So what if a gay person’s brain is hardwired differently? They can’t change that. Therefore it is not a morality issue at all.

Evolutionary biologists think non-reproducing gay people are an asset to survival, going back to hunting and gathering times. Those were the times when evolution was most at work, when humans died in large numbers at a younger age. It was survival of the fittest. That is the only reason gay people WHO DON’T HAVE OFFSPRING OF THEIR OWN, keep appearing in the general population at the rate of around two to four percent. They are an asset to the survival of a clan or family simply because they are one more set of eyes to watch and provide for the children. And it is possible that there is a statistical rise in intelligence among gay people (and obsessive-ness.)

So it boils down to this: reality exists. Human survivability is enhanced with those childish, obnoxious, simpering . . . ah . . . I mean, naturally occurring gay brothers and sisters.

A law or Supreme Court ruling validating gay marital status does not open the door for three-somes, or any other legal union not specified in the law.

Peter

[BaalChatzaf]

I have withdrawn my support for Gary Johnson because of his support of gay marriage. My reason; it opens up the virtual Pandora's box such as marriage between humans and animals or humans and machines ad nauseum. That is anarchic morality. I am an Objectivist because I believe in biological identity and morality qua reason.

Why are you concerned with what other people wish to have sexual congress with or a long term relationship with? (Sorry for all those trailing prepositions). What difference does that make?

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Reidy]

Plenty of people are married to animals and loving every minute.

[Selene]

Plenty of people are married to animals and loving every minute.

Pete:

Now that is really funny!

Adam

[Peter]

Peter Reidy wrote:

Plenty of people are married to animals and loving every minute.

end quote

My wife says I am always so warm in bed because of my Neanderthal pelt. As the years go by I get hairier all over except for my head.

I remember Barbara Branden once said most women including her, liked a Nazi in the bedroom. I went looking for that letter but could not find it. But I did find the following.

Peter Taylor

From: BBfromM@aol.com

Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2000 20:17:40 -0400

Subject: Re: ATL: The Queen Speaks

To: atlantis@wetheliving.com

It is difficult for me to convey the amount of scorn and revulsion I feel for those who--like Ellen Moore, but there are others -- insist on deifying Ayn Rand. They clutch at her even as she lies in her grave, demanding that she satisfy their unmet needs, their desperate longing for a god to worship. And they do not take the trouble to understand her. She deserves so much better of them. She earned the right to be understood, to be seen as the woman she was, for good and for bad.

Ellen Moore writes such garbage as: "She was rational, objective, benevolent, humorous, stimulating, life affirming, joyous, brilliant, kind, generous to friends and fans, charismatic, serious, challenging, and light-hearted at the same time. . . " And "she lived a gloriously passionate and fulfilled life."

How dare you do her memory the disservice of distorting it, just as Peikoff reaches into her work to distort it? Yes, Ayn Rand could at rare times be many of the things you mention, but those times came to decrease over the year s, to be replaced in many respects by their opposites, as the continuing tragedies, often self-made, of her personal life mounted--her rejection by the father she loved, by the first man she loved as a girl, the lack of fulfillment in so much of her life with her husband, the catastrophe of her relationship with Nathaniel, her failed reunion with her sister, then Frank O'Connor's increasing mental and physical ill-health, culminating in his death, her own increasing ill-health, her disappointment with the world around her. "A gloriously passionate and fulfilled life?" How dare her idolaters ignore the pain and torment of so much of her life, how dare they speak of love and admiration while refusing to know who she was!

I do her the honor of loving and admiring the woman she really was. I do her the honor of understanding her. I do her the honor of being heartbroken over the suffering she endured.

What do you think it was like for her, Ellen Moore and others who commit the same crime against Ayn Rand, to be constantly clutched at by "admirers" like you, with your incessant demands that she meet your irrational needs, that she achieve some sort of "perfection"? Is what she was not enough for you? Was it not enough that she was a seminal genius? Must she also have led an ecstatically happy life?

But I know that her "adorers" are determined to uphold the myth they have created about Ayn Rand, never the reality. They would turn from her in horror if they faced the fact that just as her virtues were larger than life, so were her flaws.

Who really is her friend: I, who love the person she was--or those who are doggedly refuse to accept and to honor the reality of the person she was?

Barbara

[Selene]

Peter:

I saw this in her early on. I have always been comfortable accepting Ayn as a real human being.

Thanks for your posting this.

Adam

[studiodekadent]

I have withdrawn my support for Gary Johnson because of his support of gay marriage. My reason; it opens up the virtual Pandora's box such as marriage between humans and animals or humans and machines ad nauseum.

That isn't even a valid slippery slope argument.

Allowing gay marriage is a logical consequence of the principle of freedom of contract, which by definition only applies to consenting adults. This means that no, gay marriage would NOT legitimize human-animal marriage (nor would it legitimize pedophilia or anything, since kids aren't consenting adults!).

Treating marriage as an issue of contract (the correct way to treat it) would legitimize polyamorous marriages (group marriages), although I don't see what would be wrong with that.

That is anarchic morality.

Context-drop. "Anarchy" is a political concept. There is no such thing as "anarchic morality" because issues of morality are logically prior to issues of politics.

If, however, by "anarchic morality" you mean something like "morality which prizes self-determination" then by that standard, Objectivism is an anarchic morality. Howard Roark didn't care about the pack, tradition, authority or society. He merely wanted to live his own life by his own values and create buildings he liked. He had no desire to rule others or be ruled (how "anarchic" of him).

I am an Objectivist because I believe in biological identity and morality qua reason.

Please explain how biological identity and rational morality mean one cannot allow same sex couples to enter marriage contracts?

Is the principle of freedom of contract anti-reason and anti-biological-identity? Is the principle of equality under law anti-reason and anti-biological-identity? The case for gay marriage rests principally upon the validity of Equality Under Law and the validity of Freedom Of Contract. Objectivism endorses both of these principles.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Blackhorse's comment about Pandora's box on gay marriage opening the way to other forms of marriage (like marriage between different species, etc.) is almost identical to a comment I read by Nathaniel Branden. I think it was in an interview, but I no longer remember where.

Since I am not against gay marriage (but not for it, either--I'm kinda indifferent, whatever makes people happy is my stance), I remember being amused at NB holding a social conservative view.

Michael

[9thdoctor]

Blackhorse's comment about Pandora's box on gay marriage opening the way to other forms of marriage (like marriage between different species, etc.) is almost identical to a comment I read by Nathaniel Branden. I think it was in an interview, but I no longer remember where.

No way. Seriously? And you were on or off the wagon in the time period you believe you read this? Well, I'm sure if it exists Peter Taylor will have it and will trot it out.

But while I'm thinking of it, I believe it was Leona Helmsley who left her estate to her dog. Now if only pets could make medical decisions on behalf of their owners, er, spouses, who knows?

This is so silly.

[Selene]

Blackhorse's comment about Pandora's box on gay marriage opening the way to other forms of marriage (like marriage between different species, etc.) is almost identical to a comment I read by Nathaniel Branden. I think it was in an interview, but I no longer remember where.

No way. Seriously? And you were on or off the wagon in the time period you believe you read this? Well, I'm sure if it exists Peter Taylor will have it and will trot it out.

But while I'm thinking of it, I believe it was Leona Helmsley who left her estate to her dog. Now if only pets could make medical decisions on behalf of their owners, er, spouses, who knows?

This is so silly.

Maybe not Dennis:

Remember the wacko woman in Connecticutt that had the Chimpanzee sleeping with her, she had dinner with the Chimp and it tore her friends face off?

Adam

[9thdoctor]

Maybe not Dennis:

Remember the wacko woman in Connecticutt that had the Chimpanzee sleeping with her, she had dinner with the Chimp and it tore her friends face off?

I don't remember that, but so what?

Maybe this isn't as obvious to everyone else as it is to me: Marriage is a type of contract. In order to enter into a contract you need competent parties. No (non-human) animal qualifies as a competent party. Therefore, inter-species marriage is impossible in our legal system. Um, I think that covers it. I'm feeling like a pedantic fool for having written this, I need a beer then maybe it will seem funny.