Gary Johnson for President

[SteveWolfer]

43 minutes ago, william.scherk said:

 Is calling for marijuana legalization clownish itself, or only the way Johnson does it?

In my mind it is both... but by far it mostly the way Johnson does it.  If I envision my idea of an ideal libertarian candidate's answer, it would be that, morally, the government doesn't own a person's body and has no right to tell them what they can or can not take into it.  And that constitutionally, there is grant of power in this area.  But politically, because there are so many issues of much greater impact on our nation that as president I would not expend any political energy attempting to legalize marijuana... (or something like that).  When I watch Johnson, it is like the teenager within him is too much in control and he is almost giggling over politically 'mooning' the culture.  Is he getting a kick out being a kind of 'shock-jock'?

 

50 minutes ago, william.scherk said:

what is the problem with calling for  legalization of marijuana?

That it will ensure you won't get elected? 

That it gives the electorate a view of the candidate as something of a single issue candidate - "Oh yeah, Johnson, he's that pro-marijuana guy - the one who said he was going to give up using marijuana while he is president."

That Johnson is giggling about edibles while the middle east is on fire, open warfare against our cops has started, that race relations have reached the point where killings are weekly, where inner city crime accounts for more deaths in the US than Americans killed soldiers killed in wars in the middle east, that the largest stock market in the world may be a bubble, that the regulatory state is now such a burden that it costs business more than taxes... and so forth.  Maybe it is me, but I think he makes himself into a kind of clown and gets a kick out of it.  To me, he doesn't come across as serious.

[william.scherk]

Roads!

2 hours ago, Jonathan said:

6 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

14 hours ago, Jonathan said:

On 7/13/2016 at 1:13 PM, william.scherk said:

Who will finance, plan and build the subways and the new sectors they serve? Etc.  The best my naive understanding can suggest is a similar publicly-supervised set of consortia and public interests as today, of similar wills and similar sources of monies. City roads will exist, as will state and federal roads and rights-of-way. Controlled-access interstate roads could be re-tolled the length and breadth of the Union, and city-urban sectors could be tolled-by-use and tolled-by-time. The economic inefficiencies of piecemeal development may be better managed with a hierarchical contract scheme, or with a price on every foot of 'public' byway, be it sidewalk or bridge to nowhere.

I remember hearing, years and years ago, Hedrick Smith being interviewed about his book, The Russians. When confronted with the idea of privatization, Soviet citizens couldn't imagine who would produce and deliver food, and everything else, if government weren't in charge of it all.

Were the Russians whom Hedrick Smith interview aware than in the U.S.  over 90 percent of the food is privately produced and distributed?

Smith didn't merely interview the Ruskies, but lived among them, and experienced what they did.

Thanks, Jonathan, for the book reference, it looks like a classic. At Amazon.com: The Russians Mass Market Paperback – August 12, 1984 | more blurbage and detail on the book at the website devoted to Hedrick Smith**).

In the new Russia of Putin, roads are still as shitty as ever.  The first couple of minutes of this video are fun.

But anyhow, an analogy from Roads to farm-to-table production/distribution in Soviet times takes me nowhere -- if I am to get a glimpse of future 'dismantlement' -- the whys and hows a new order of things would replace the status quo.

My larger point is that I see no real 'problem' in road building, no pressing problem ripe for a libertarian/laissez-faire  'solution.' 

The age-old notion of 'right of way' cuts facets of the order of things for me, as a right instantiated in such things as licensing and allowance to drive a 'public' good.  I believe that the present balance of public road to private road will remain under any new regime -- or at least will be one of the last great infrastructure combines to be broken up under  a Libertarian/Randian dispensation.  

Perhaps I am misapprehending the 'problem' and just not getting important points.  Are roads (of all kinds) a problem that can be solved by so-called privatization? 

 Hedrick Smith has written a 2012 book of note -- Who Stole the American Dream? -- and has also weighed in on 2016 electoral politics: Journalist Hedrick Smith On The Historic 2016 Campaign Season  (May 6, 2016) ...

Smith giving the gin on his stolen dream book in 2014:

-- Smith talks with Tavis Smiley about Trump-related things here: "Something is amiss in America ..." from 2012.

If you start talking politics to somebody on the bus or the train or the plane, you risk getting sort of a volcanic reaction. People angry at Congress for gridlock and not dealing with the nation’s problems, they’re angry at the banks for causing the collapse and taking a bailout, making profits and then not helping homeowners out.

They’re angry at the system, they’re frustrated, they don’t know where to turn, and I have to tell you, I covered a lot of this stuff as the Washington bureau chief of “The New York Times” and so forth through the ’70s and ’80s. When I went back and I started to dig into the history and take a look at it, I learned so much. I couldn’t believe how much I’d missed.

When you start to put the picture together you understand that there are long-term trends that have been at work here since the late ’70s in the economy and in politics that really have put us in the predicament that we’re in today. We’re not going to get out of it, we’re not going to get a smart fix in this country, unless we understand the real roots of our problems, and I don’t think the present campaign is doing that at all.

________________

** Blurb! (see also the Wikipedia entry for the author)

The Russians, Hedrick Smith’s classic best-selling account of life in Socialist Russia, is still regarded as a defining exploration of the Russian soul more than twenty years after it first appeared in print.

This is not the synthetic Russia of the Kremlinologists, but Russia face-to-face, the texture of life as Russians live it. Few reporters have had the stamina and the ingenuity to penetrate the tight government controls and xenophobia to see the Russians as they see themselves.

Moscow Bureau Chief for The New York Times from 1971 to 1974-and awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1974 for his coverage from the U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe-Hedrick Smith probed and painstakingly pieced together an amazing jigsaw puzzle of habits, humor, and idiosyncracies that presents a Soviet reality that few in the West experienced first hand.

Smith guides us through this enormous, complex, and seemingly unknowable Socialist empire. [...]

The Russians are revealed as a richly paradoxical people driven by contradictory energies that are as enduring as Russia itself: latent anarchy posed against a preoccupation with control, a sentimental warmth behind an almost brutal public coldness, a brooding sense of national inferiority beneath a compulsion for extravagant claims, an egalitarian idealism undercut by an obsession with order and perquisites of status, a general acquiescence to the system and an inbred instinct to beat it.

I am reading Putin in to this excerpt from the book site.  He is today gnashing his teeth about the prospect of a ban on Russian athletes for the Rio Olympics.  The state doped "its" athletes and conspired to cheat and falsify the record.

Dope! 

Edited July 19, 2016 by william.scherk
Attribution; added one more link to crazy Russian roads

[KorbenDallas]

2 hours ago, SteveWolfer said:

When I watch Johnson, it is like the teenager within him is too much in control and he is almost giggling over politically 'mooning' the culture.

This seems to support the theory:

Quote

“For me when I smoked marijuana when I was 17 years old for the first time, the first takeaway was holy cow this is so much better than alcohol! There just doesn’t seem to be a downside,” said the former governor.

(from  http://dailycaller.com/2016/03/21/gary-johnson-reveals-the-last-time-he-used-marijuana/ )

Today, he claims it's "safer" than alcohol.

[william.scherk]

2 hours ago, SteveWolfer said:

Because there are so many issues of much greater impact on our nation that as president I would not expend any political energy attempting to legalize marijuana... (or something like that). 

It was an issue between the two major parties up here in the federal election last October. Trudeau as party leader set a policy of legalization of marijuana, and added it to the platform. We have had a weird quasi-legal regime (notably in BC, especially in Vancouver proper) wherein pot possession was not prosecuted at consumer level, and over time a 'legal' medical marijuana industry went gangbusters and unprosecuted here. 

This sloppy situation is contrasted immediately to the south, where Washington state legalized/regulated the recreational drug market. Canada's other 'watch laboratories' are in Oregon and Colorado. It seems likely to me that California will follow the two states to the north in a referendum/ballot measure.

In any case, one goofy-ish but polished showboat like Trudeau defended his 'legalize it' policy among other policies that were election issues.  And has since begun the vast consultation necessary to Colorado-ize our laws.

Tying together the Canadian fait-accompli with the Libertarian platform, it seems to me that a growing plurality of Americans are going to be OK with pot legalization, as they were with gay marriage.  They can do that and move on.

I am saying in the subtitles that I might be just too steeped in Canucki sensibility to appreciate what a 'dumb move' it is for Gary Johnson to have libertarian pot policy as part of his platform and his pitch. 

(-- boring aside on Canucki law and practice.  Like you guys there is a difference in potency of crimes.  A felony vs misdemeanor, or a summary offence, or a civil offence, ranked by awfulness and degree of punition.  The practical but bizarre set-up is that certain pot crimes on the books, even trafficking offences, are rarely enforced across the board, or are otherwise so low-prioritized by law enforcement that there is a gap between law and practice, a kind of corruption. The corruption extends to the courts. If the police hand off to the Crown a case of pot possession, and the Crown puts it on the docket, the judge would pretty much view the charge with incredulity. Why the hell are you bringing a pot possession case before me?

So ... what could be hard time or a civil discharge (clean record) is decided in this corrupt gap, to my mind. That is why although disgusted by Showboating Trudeau style, I applauded his policy to overhaul marijuana law, to bring it into conformance with reality.  Sweet, dumb, commie-loving Canada agrees in the majority that pot crimes are not prison crimes, that a certain life-style privacy is compatible with Canadian values.)

If one or two or three or four or nine of your states move to legalize the devil weed before the decade is out, goofy Gary's notions of legalization might then appear common-sense law-enforcement and in line with American values. 

Quote

When I watch Johnson, it is like the teenager within him is too much in control and he is almost giggling over politically 'mooning' the culture.  Is he getting a kick out being a kind of 'shock-jock'?

I would probably have to watch a lot more of Johnson to appreciate the effect you exhibit.  Does this mean you can't vote this year?  It sounds like you would rather acid-bath than vote for Clinton, Trump, Johnson or Stein. (what are your choices of Senator and House candidates if you have to skip the top parts of the ballot? -- anyone tempting enough to bother going to the polls?)

2 hours ago, SteveWolfer said:

3 hours ago, william.scherk said:

what is the problem with calling for  legalization of marijuana?

That it will ensure you won't get elected?

I think it is already assured that Johnson will not poll enough to win -- with or without the marijuana issue.

More seriously, if you called for the legalization of marijuana in your state, are you out of step or in step with the populace, by your reckoning?  Is America in your region a long long way from Canadian/Washingtonian/Coloradan social libertarianism?  If so, of course a pot plank might be bad news for Johnson's vote-getting there. Still, this is an odd election year, with some fission of comfortable allegiances, and high levels of distrust and disgust.

Perhaps what I have missed is the impact of Johnson's actual work as a pot entrepreneur.  Is this in itself viewed poorly, in moral terms, or does it have a capitalist cachet?  From my vantage, a few stars of the North American pot industry have emerged, and he isn't the biggest or the best.  

Quote

That it gives the electorate a view of the candidate as something of a single issue candidate - "Oh yeah, Johnson, he's that pro-marijuana guy - the one who said he was going to give up using marijuana while he is president."

That Johnson is giggling about edibles while the middle east is on fire ...

For me, the Middle East caught fire (again) in April 2011, in Syria.  From a state of peace and order to today's state of horror took time and multiple atrocities and crimes against humanity. I don't believe that Johnson (or Trump) has paid persistent attention to that fire as it metastasized.  

I think an American politician would be very wary of US 'boots' in Syria at any time in the escalation. The focus has been since that date on the end of American commitment of force in Iraq, at the various fires and conflagrations within that state.  The focus also on Iran's nuclear-military ambitions.  On Libya, and the lesser victims of the revolutions and counter-revolutions, and counter-counter revolutions of the bitter Arab Spring.

In this sense I believe Gary Johnson is a Middle East lightweight.  But I owe myself some investigation of his stated views and opinions. I haven't read deeply.   

Steve, all that aside, how might you feel about Johnson if he manages to get above 15% and thus spars under the big top with Clinton and Trump -- will you be rooting or groaning going in to that circus, do you think?

Maybe a couple of better questions are: do we think Johnson gets in on the debates/do we want him in the debates?  At this point I have to say no to the first, which makes the second moot. Double-moot since I am Canadian.

I wish Johnson or other worthy could build up a real, persistent national party over time, not merely to appear as the third-wheel in presidential debates, but as a meaningful caucus in Congress    I wish somebody could crack that third-party nut.  A presidential contest could build on that achievement.

The effect of Johnson is in my view a classic 'spoiler' -- like a lesser Nader, Perot, Anderson, Buchanan, Wallace.

Presently his 'likely' voters intentions seem to be poached from both the GOP and Democrat candidates, in roughly equal measure.  He may thus spoil either candidate's chance at getting a majority of the popular vote -- unless his likelies are phantoms come November.  The state-by-state Johnson siphon effects on the Electoral College scoreboard are uncertain, but to my mind no Libertarian thumb will be felt on the scales of  that victory.  The fundamentals of the race need not account for that Libertarian variable.  Which is too bad for the factions for Liberty, at least as conceived here at OL, forged in the heat of reason.  It can't get any traction.

Perhaps our prognoses converge: on balance of probabilities Gary Johnson is irrelevant to the outcome in November.

Edited July 19, 2016 by william.scherk
Debolded. NB -- the forum still recognizes BBCode, ie, [b] and can render an mess; Nader!

[SteveWolfer]

10 minutes ago, william.scherk said:

it seems to me that a growing plurality of Americans are going to be OK with pot legalization

I agree the acceptance of pot legalization is growing rapidly.  But what Johnson appears to focus on will be amplified by the media, especially when it is the least bit controversial, and that is why a politician has to choose where he says he will expend his limited political capital.  It is a juggling act between what he can convince the population to get excited by and what they should be excited about whether or not they know it.

 

15 minutes ago, william.scherk said:

...one or two or three or four or nine of your states move to legalize the devil weed...

I suspect that pot legalization will be a de-facto, state nullification of federal laws.  I believe that is the way that repeal of the Prohibition Amendment acquired momentum.
 

18 minutes ago, william.scherk said:

Does this mean you can't vote this year?  It sounds like you would rather acid-bath than vote for Clinton, Trump, Johnson or Stein. (what are your choices of Senator and House candidates if you have to skip the top parts of the ballot? -- anyone tempting enough to bother going to the polls?)

Right now (and it could change), I will vote for Trump IF and ONLY IF on the day before the election I believe that he will keep his word on only nominating Supreme Court justices from that list.  Because that would change America's political trajectory that would extend over generations.  We could once again become a constitutional republic in practice, or lose the constitution totally in practical terms.  (Remember Ted Keer?  He and I squabbled on RoR over McCain versus Obama versus voting Libertarian.  I argued that we should vote principle and help empower libertarian principles by voting Libertarian.  Ted said, we had to vote McCain if for no other reason than to stop Obama's Supreme Court appointments.  Ted was right.)

I see Trump as more of a con man than a politician (how's that for drawing a fine distinction!).  What make it easier to vote Trump is how easy and solidly I'm NEVERHILLARY.  If I can't trust Trump on the Supremes, I'll vote for Johnson. 

28 minutes ago, william.scherk said:

if you called for the legalization of marijuana in your state, are you out of step or in step with the populace, by your reckoning?  Is America in your region a long long way from Canadian/Washingtonian/Coloradan social libertarianism?

I'm in Arizona.  The state has fairly harsh laws for recreational use of pot, but it voted in a medical marijuana initiative.  So, things are mixed.  We are on the cusp of a generational change in liberalism/libertarianism due to baby-boomer demographics and the greater chasm between generations (due I'd guess to the educational system being more political and due to social media changing communication patterns).

40 minutes ago, william.scherk said:

how might you feel about Johnson if he manages to get above 15% and thus spar with Clinton and Trump -- will you be rooting or groaning going in, do you think?

Would I be rooting or groaning?  Yes.  Rooting for Johnson to do well.  Rooting for the exposure of libertarian principles.  Groaning when he behaves like a lightweight.  Groaning when he lets himself be trapped again and again by Trump, Hillary or a moderator on silly anti-libertarian jabs (like his pot use, or like making him out to be an isolationist). 

 

45 minutes ago, william.scherk said:

...on balance .... Gary Johnson is irrelevant to the outcome

True (with the caveat that politics is unpredictable), and sad, because even if he is irrelevant to the outcome, with more gravitas, and some good coaching, he could bring libertarian principles to lots more people and they could shift the Overton Window a bit.

[Jonathan]

3 hours ago, william.scherk said:

Perhaps I am misapprehending the 'problem' and just not getting important points.

 

I don't think the roads issue is a pressing problem, or anything near to being the in the first tier of rights issues that libertarians would want to address when heading toward their ideal system. I only mentioned "Muh roads!" here because I thought it was funny that the Johnson campaign seemed to be preemptively addressing the standard objection that "statist zombies" have to libertarianism: "But what about Muh roads?!!!" It's an issue which terrifies certain people. They act as if they believe that the world will come to an end if libertarians have their way, because roads will then cease to exist, and we will be landlocked, trapped, and economically paralyzed.

"Muh roads!!!"

J

[william.scherk]

3 hours ago, Jonathan said:

"Muh roads!!!"

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Am I the only one who finds this disturbing?

Libertarian presidential candidate ‘open’ to basic income

I don't have time to comment much right now, but I didn't like it when Charles Murray came out with this thing and I don't like it in the mouth of a Libertarian candidate (presuming the article is true).

Since when is a universal welfare check supplied by the government a libertarian idea? Shades of Orwell...

Michael

[jts]

1 hour ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Am I the only one who finds this disturbing?

Libertarian presidential candidate ‘open’ to basic income

I don't have time to comment much right now, but I didn't like it when Charles Murray came out with this thing and I don't like it in the mouth of a Libertarian candidate (presuming the article is true).

Since when is a universal welfare check supplied by the government a libertarian idea? Shades of Orwell...

Michael

I am reminded of an article Kasparov wrote many years ago in Chess Life magazine. At that time he was world champion and a regular writer for Chess Life and he always had something interesting. In this one article he wrote about his thought processes in a game for the world title between himself and Karpov. This is rare. Usually the comments on chess moves are about tactics and strategy and openings, not thought processes. We got a rare insight into some thought processes of history's greatest chess mind. I should have made a photo copy of that article. I remember only small bits of that article.

He wrote (quoting from memory): How should one regard with a sober mind the following idea which was conceived in my brain? ...

It involved a sacrifice of the queen and was obviously a bad move. Even tho it was obviously a bad move, he insisted on thinking about it at some length. This led thru a series of steps to a better move which accomplished approximately the same thing but had the advantage of being a good move.

 

[william.scherk]

45 minutes ago, jts said:

2 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Libertarian presidential candidate ‘open’ to basic income [...]

Since when is a universal welfare check supplied by the government a libertarian idea?

I am reminded of an article Kasparov wrote many years ago in Chess Life magazine.

I am reminded "Bleeding Hearts Libertarians," and of a new-ish blend of Libertarian policy, notable from the CATO Institute's Matt Zwolinski. See his two articles excerpted here:

The Libertarian Case for a Basic Income - Dec 5, 2013

Guaranteeing a minimum income to the poor is better than our current system of welfare, Zwolinski argues. And it can be justified by libertarian principles.

This morning, I did a short interview with the Cato Institute about the libertarian case for a Basic Income Guarantee. The immediate stimulus for the conversation was the recent Swiss proposal to pay each and every and every citizen 2,500 francs (about 2,800 USD) per month. But conversation quickly turned to the question of whether some form of basic income proposal might be compatible with libertarianism. Some of my colleagues at Bleeding Heart Libertarians have certainly expressed enthusiasm for it in the past. And over at Reason.com, Matthew Feeney recently published a short but favorable writeup of the idea.

[...]

The Pragmatic Libertarian Case for a Basic Income Guarantee - August 4, 2014

In what follows, I will make the case for a Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) as a replacement for the current welfare state. There are a number of distinct ways of arguing from libertarian premises to a BIG, some of which I have discussed in the past. In this essay, however, I will focus on what I take to be the strongest and most persuasive libertarian argument. I will argue that a BIG, even if it is not ideal from a libertarian perspective, is significantly better on libertarian grounds than our current welfare state, and has a much higher likelihood of being achieved in a world in which most people reject libertarian views.

I begin in the next section by explaining what I mean by a BIG. I then proceed to set out four reasons why libertarians should support a BIG over the current American welfare state. I close with some reflections on libertarian ideals and political compromise. [...]

Click image to visit the website Bleeding Hearts Libertarians. 

 

Edited July 20, 2016 by william.scherk
Finicky URL ...

[SteveWolfer]

Ayn Rand did NOT like libertarians.  And there were good reasons.  They took some of the political principles that Objectivists hold, but because they didn't always integrate them with more basic principles they were too liable to drift off in some strange direction.  I'm sure that there are, somewhere out there, libertarian-communists.  What we have with BIG is someone who has an idea, and instead of thinking about the underlying principles - which would have resulted in rejecting the idea, he falls in love with the novelty of the idea and that it is his.

There are different ways of not taking ideas seriously... that is one of them.

[Jonathan]

1 hour ago, SteveWolfer said:

Ayn Rand did NOT like libertarians.  And there were good reasons.  They took some of the political principles that Objectivists hold, but because they didn't always integrate them with more basic principles they were too liable to drift off in some strange direction...

Really? Hmmm. So, are you saying that libertarians didn't exist prior to Rand? They had no ideas of their own, but just stole some of hers? Where might we see some proof to back up your opinion that Rand had good reason to be as pissy and self-important as she was about her accusations against libertarians?

 

1 hour ago, SteveWolfer said:

I'm sure that there are, somewhere out there, libertarian-communists.

There are also people who claim to be Objectivist-communists, Objectivist-Christians, Objectivist-Muslims.

There are all sorts of Objectivists who contradict Objectivism, including Rand herself. She was sometimes even more kooky in her opinions than the kookiest libertarians whom she threw fits over.

 

1 hour ago, SteveWolfer said:

What we have with BIG is someone who has an idea, and instead of thinking about the underlying principles - which would have resulted in rejecting the idea, he falls in love with the novelty of the idea and that it is his.

Heh. It sounds to me as if you don't know any libertarians, and have never actually argued with the brightest among them. You're posing. Try that tactic on, say, George H. Smith, if he'll entertain himself wasting his time on you, and see how well you do.

J

[SteveWolfer]

3 minutes ago, Jonathan said:

So, are you saying that libertarians didn't exist prior to Rand? They had no ideas of their own, but just stole some of hers? Where might we see some proof to back up your opinion that Rand had good reason to be as pissy and self-important as she was about her accusations against libertarians?

You are putting words in my mouth. 

• I said nothing about when libertarians first came on the scene. 
• I didn't say that they had no ideas of their own. 

My respect for Ayn Rand is such that if you want to refer to her as "pissy and self-important" you can find someone else to discuss these issues with.  When I said she had good reason, I was referring to my own opinion of the many strange varieties of libertarians.

9 minutes ago, Jonathan said:

There are all sorts of Objectivists who contradict Objectivism

What does that, or any of your remarks about Objectivists have to do with the thread or with my post?

10 minutes ago, Jonathan said:

Heh. It sounds to me as if you don't know any libertarians, and have never actually argued with the brightest among them. You're posing. Try that tactic on, say, George H. Smith, if he'll entertain himself wasting his time on you, and see how well you do.

I have no idea why you have gotten so nasty over my post - it seems like you went far beyond just disagreeing with my short post.  I am a libertarian.  (And an Objectivist.)  I've been voting Libertarian since they first put up a candidate (John Hospers in 1972).

Frankly, your comments about me "posing" and your mention of George H. Smith (Who I have considerable respect for, despite any disagreements we might have) is just plain strange.

[Jonathan]

7 minutes ago, SteveWolfer said:

My respect for Ayn Rand is such that if you want to refer to her as "pissy and self-important" you can find someone else to discuss these issues with.

My respect for the long history of libertarian heroes is such that I will not tolerate your sniffy sniping at them. So, if you want to continue to be a snarky little bitch, do it elsewhere.

 

12 minutes ago, SteveWolfer said:

What does that, or any of your remarks about Objectivists have to do with the thread or with my post?

Well, the standard pissy Objectivist criticism of libertarians is that they are all over the place philosophically, that they're not properly "integrated," etc. My point was that the same is true of Objectivists, including Rand. There are "many strange varieties" of Objectivists. So, shouldn't we get all pissy and self-important about Rand and her followers for doing exactly what she got all pissy and self-important over when throwing fits over libertarians?

 

15 minutes ago, SteveWolfer said:

I have no idea why you have gotten so nasty over my post - it seems like you went far beyond just disagreeing with my short post.  I am a libertarian.  (And an Objectivist.)  I've been voting Libertarian since they first put up a candidate (John Hospers in 1972).

Frankly, your comments about me "posing" and your mention of George H. Smith (Who I have considerable respect for, despite any disagreements we might have) is just plain strange.

Do you not pay attention to what you're saying when you say it??? You accused libertarians of stealing Rand's ideas, and of not properly integrating them with more basic principles. I simply challenged you to back up that statement, and to apply the same standards to Objectivists. There's nothing nasty about my asking for proof, and also for consistency. My, how delicate you are!!!

J

[BaalChatzaf]

1 hour ago, Jonathan said:

 

Do you not pay attention to what you're saying when you say it??? You accused libertarians of stealing Rand's ideas, and of not properly integrating them with more basic principles. I simply challenged you to back up that statement, and to apply the same standards to Objectivists. There's nothing nasty about my asking for proof, and also for consistency. My, how delicate you are!!!

J

Lysander Spooner, the Original American Libertarian was busy at work long before Rand was born.  

Please see:   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysander_Spooner

[william.scherk]

On 7/19/2016 at 1:36 PM, SteveWolfer said:

On 7/19/2016 at 0:47 PM, william.scherk said:

how might you feel about Johnson if he manages to get above 15% and thus spar with Clinton and Trump -- will you be rooting or groaning going in, do you think?

Would I be rooting or groaning?  Yes.  Rooting for Johnson to do well.  Rooting for the exposure of libertarian principles.  Groaning when he behaves like a lightweight.  Groaning when he lets himself be trapped again and again by Trump, Hillary or a moderator on silly anti-libertarian jabs (like his pot use, or like making him out to be an isolationist). 

Further to discussion of the Johnson campaign, he is at the least getting some long-form attention in national/liberal media. Here's some excerpts from a lengthy New Yorker piece. Love the top quote. Let's see if this leaves you groaning, Steve, at least at the notion Johnson will poach Democratic votes and help swerve the outcome. I am looking twice at my first take --  that Johnson's candidacy will be irrelevant.  Who knows what lurks in the hearts of November voters when our calendars say July 24?

Quote

"Third parties are like bees,” the historian Richard Hofstadter wrote, in 1955. “Once they have stung, they die.” 

THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL  JULY 25, 2016 ISSUE
THE LIBERTARIANS’ SECRET WEAPON
The third-party candidacy of Gary Johnson might make the most unpredictable election in modern times even weirder.
 By Ryan Lizza

The unpopularity of Clinton and Trump has created a rare opportunity.ILLUSTRATION BY BARRY BLITT [...]

Johnson, who is sixty-three, tan, and fit, with spiky gray hair, has long been unrepentant about his use of marijuana. During his first campaign for governor, in 1994, he was asked to quantify his earlier use. “I came up with two and a half times a week,” he told me. Still, as governor, he earned plaudits from the right for being one of the more conservative governors. National Review praised him as the “New Mexico maverick” and as a “Reaganite antitax crusader,” who cut income-tax rates, slowed the growth of government, and eliminated the jobs of hundreds of state employees. During his two terms as governor, Johnson vetoed more than seven hundred bills passed by a Democratic legislature.

In 1999, after winning a second term, Johnson became the highest-ranking elected official in America to call for the full legalization of marijuana. His approval rating dropped into the twenties, and he returned to his agenda of lower taxes and less spending. He left office with an approval rating in the high fifties. Today, he is willing to make other concessions to the political mainstream. When we met, Johnson wore Nikes with a suit, his signature style since 2012. But, after a lively debate with his campaign advisers, he showed up for his CNN appearance wearing dress shoes.

[...]

The sting of Ross Perot’s candidacy was felt even before the 1992 election was over, when both Clinton and Bush adopted his views on deficit reduction. In 1996, a year after Perot founded the Reform Party, he ran as its candidate, but he didn’t even qualify for the Presidential debates. By 2000, the Reform Party had no clear ideology, and had become an outlet for the aspirations of Donald Trump, Jesse Ventura, and Pat Buchanan, who won its nomination that year.

[...]

Johnson endorsed Ron Paul in 2008, but in 2011, dismayed by the war on drugs, the military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, and Barack Obama’s liberal fiscal record, he decided to run for President as a Republican. He encountered formidable resistance when he tried to attract the right-wing Republican electorate in early-primary states, especially when it came to social issues and immigration.

“Thirty per cent of Republican voters out there right now believe the scourge of the earth is Mexican immigration,” he told me. “You go to these Party events in New Hampshire and in Iowa, and they set the criteria for the entire nation. It’s profound. You can’t get beyond those two states, because you have to go out and appeal to anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-drugs, anti-immigration—and I’m crossways on all of those. I’d argue I’m the pragmatist in the room, but you can’t get past those groups, especially in those two states.” In December, 2011, Johnson left the Republican Party and found a home among the Libertarians, who awarded him the Party’s nomination. In the 2012 Presidential election, he won 1,275,971 votes, the Party’s largest total ever.

[...]

After his speech, Johnson wandered around the convention greeting voters and conducted a round of interviews. One reporter asked him about the lack of diversity in the Libertarian Party, which, as some people remember from college dorm-room discussions, tends to attract a disproportionate number of young white males. Johnson said that there was no diversity problem, and that the Party would do better in nonwhite communities as he became better known. A few minutes later, an aide directed him to a room in the convention center that was named for Harriet Tubman. “Who’s Harriet Tubman?” Johnson asked. (After the aide reminded him who Tubman was, Johnson recalled that she will appear on a new twenty-dollar bill.)

No third-party candidate has won multiple electoral votes since George Wallace’s campaign as the candidate of the anti-civil-rights American Independent Party, in 1968.* Wallace, who focussed on his base, in the South, did not try to win the election; rather, he wanted to win enough electoral votes to deny a majority to the Democratic and Republican candidates. According to the Constitution, if no candidate receives a majority of electoral votes—two hundred and seventy—the contest is decided by the House of Representatives, where each state’s delegation has a single vote. When pressed, Johnson conceded that this is his real strategy. His targets, aside from his home state of New Mexico, are states in the West and the Great Plains that have been Libertarian Party strongholds in the past: Utah, Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, Alaska, and the Dakotas.

“If it gets thrown to the House of Representatives and it goes beyond one ballot, I could be President,” Johnson said, smiling at the absurdity of the idea. 

[...]

Ryan Lizza is the Washington correspondent for The New Yorker, and also an on-air contributor for CNN. 
This article appears in other versions of the July 25, 2016, issue, with the headline “Flying High.”

 

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

From HotAir:

Gary Johnson’s VP: We’d be looking to appoint Supreme Court justices like Stephen Breyer and Merrick Garland

I'll just let people come to their own conclusions.

Michael

[SteveWolfer]

After showing that Johnson is either NOT really a libertarian or will say anything, the author writes one of my favorite lines: "Is Hillary Clinton the only candidate running this year who’s actually a member of her own party?"  Well, as a progressive, she is, but at her level of corruption I'd say she is party of her own.  Maybe historians will look back and say that this is the year that political principles were totally abandoned and it was visible in the way that parties broke down and fractured.

----------------------

 

The article's author attempts to make sense of Johnson saying he'd appoint a Stephen Breyer type to the Supreme Court.  The author asks if maybe it is a strategic ploy by Johnson-Weld, and they are trying to attract votes that would otherwise go to one of the major party candidates. What?  That just doesn't make sense.  Or, maybe they are trying to look like the nice guys where Hillary and Donald are looking like the mean ones.

 

"Nothing says 'reasonable' to independents and low-information voters quite like a moderate Republican turned libertarian endorsing Democratic justices."  Seriously?  What says "integrity"?

 

What will happen is that about 12 people who were GOP will vote for Johnson as a nice guy, and about 13 registered Democrats will decide that Johnson has the right idea on the Supreme Court, and about 100,000 Libertarians will decide "Fuck it! I'm not voting for him."
------------

 

"If you’re #NeverTrump, your dilemma here is this: Do Johnson’s flirtations with the left make it impossible to vote for him, even though everyone understands that he’s never going to be in a position to act on those flirtations? If you’re thinking of casting a vote for a guy who can’t win, it doesn’t matter what his positions are, really. All that matters is whether he’s gone too far in muddling the message you want to send with that vote."

 

Put a bit more straight forward: it isn't totally throwing your vote away as long as the vote represents the principles you demand.  But, when that's not the case, the reason for heading to the polling booth is gone.
----------

 

"Johnson is, in theory, the candidate of smaller government; in practice, if he’s willing to entertain the idea of appointing another Breyer to the Court, then maybe he isn’t."

 

I see only two explanations.  Johnson has become someone who will say anything for a vote or for attention, or Johnson has been into the cannabis way, way to much and has come adrift.

 

Simplifies my vote.  Trump or stay home (actually, I'd go vote the down ticket)

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

1 hour ago, SteveWolfer said:

 

I see only two explanations.  Johnson has become someone who will say anything for a vote or for attention, or Johnson has been into the cannabis way, way to much and has come adrift.

Steve,

How about a third alternative?: The Neocon support of Johnson that is starting is raising its ugly head.

Michael

[SteveWolfer]

13 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

The Neocon support of Johnson that is starting is raising its ugly head

If Johnson is courting anyone, for money or votes or to get into the debates, by advocating the appointment of a Supreme Court justice who is big government, then he has sold out - lost his integrity.  Or he has eaten so many brownies that he mind doesn't make enough connections anymore to see where he is relative to where libertarian principles are.

I still think that Neocons would only support him in hopes of throwing the election to the house, or to Hillary if they think she will fight the wars they favor.  In the later case, that is but another sign that politics is now a train that has left the tracks - "principles!  I don't need no stinking principles!"

[william.scherk]

Muh Roads! Muh Airports! Muh Infrastructure!

Trump Promises to Double Clinton's Infrastructure Spending Plan

 

Quote

 

Clinton has proposed spending $275 billion over five years.

Earlier today, Trump told FOX Business Network’s Stuart Varney he’ll do even more than that.

“We have a great plan and we are going to rebuild our infrastructure.  By the way, her [Hillary Clinton] numbers is a fraction of what we’re talking about, we need much more money than that to rebuild our infrastructure.  Well I would say at least double her numbers and you’re going to really need more than that.  We have bridges that are falling down.”

Trump is proposing to create bonds to help fund his plan.  

 “People, investors.  People would put money into the fund, citizens would put money into the fund and we will rebuild our infrastructure with that fund and it will be a great investment and it’s going to put a lot of people to work.”

“These would be bonds,” Trump explained further, “so we’d do infrastructure bonds from the United States.”

Trump says this project can lift economic growth above 4%.

 

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Or we could do it the Obama way--promise gazillions in "shovel-ready projects," then spend the money on other stuff once the money is available.

At least "shovel-ready projects" is a cool phrase...

Michael

[KorbenDallas]

Doh!  "DEA declines to reschedule marijuana, saying drug has no accepted medical use":
http://www.denverpost.com/2016/08/11/dea-not-rescheduling-marijuana/

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration filed documents with the Federal Register on Thursday outlining its denial of petitions to reschedule marijuana.

The filings, which are expected to be published Friday, included the rescheduling decision, a rejection of the medical use of marijuana, statements of principles on industrial hemp, and a move to allow more entities to cultivate marijuana for research purposes.

The filings, which are expected to be published Friday, included the rescheduling decision, a rejection of the medical use of marijuana, statements of principles on industrial hemp, and a move to allow more entities to cultivate marijuana for research purposes.he DEA’s denial of the petitions — which was anticipated — was rooted in the recommendations of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services, which both conducted scientific and medical evaluations and eventually determined that marijuana should remain a Schedule I substance under the Controlled Substances Act, DEA officials said.

“We are truly tethered to the science, bound by statute,” DEA spokesman Russell Baer said Thursday morning in an interview with The Denver Post. “Everything we do, everything that we’re governed by, is contained within the CSA.”

The DEA, by definition, is a law enforcement entity that enforces the provision of the act, Baer said. In this case, its determination toward marijuana was weighted heavily on how the FDA ruled, he said.

“Congress could reschedule this tomorrow,” he said.

[...]

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I started to see Charles Payne interview Bill Weld on Fox Business and had to turn it off.

Weld's argument about Trump's alleged woeful lack of knowledge about international trade boiled down to this: if the World Trade Organization does something, it's all good. Anything against the WTO is all bad. Anyway, the way the WTO interconnected everything through globalization, it's folly to interfere anymore.

I'm serious. That's an accurate gist of what he said. (Maybe a tad bit of hyperbole on my part about "all"...  but the sad part is that it is only this tad bit. Everything else is accurate. Really...)

This guy is running as a libertarian. And libertarians are saying this kind of crap is libertarian thinking.

I stand in awe...

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Roger Stone today (Aug. 17) tells Bill Weld that he thinks the third party candidates should be on the presidential debate stage.

I originally looked at this to see Roger's view of the addition of Stephen Bannon and Kellyanne Conway to the campaign management. The word in the mainstream is that this is a clipping of Paul Manafort's wings, but Roger says both he and Manafort are quite happy with it, seeing that this is a time requiring an expansion. He even said he advised on it.

Michael