The tl;dr version of my post just below yours: The Libertarian Party is fatally compromised and crippled by its disavowal of using government power—derived from the consent of the governed and their elected representatives—to secure, maintain and advance the common good.
Also, the LP seems riddled with clowns, clueless opportunists (e.g. Gary Johnson) and 1%ers like the Koch brothers who just want to lower their taxes, regulatory burdens and general compliance with federal laws.
End qualified immunity. End civil asset forfeiture. End the drug war. End overcriminalization. End no-knock warrants. End militarization of police. End mandatory minimums.
So but maybe that holds but what about the blurbs? Do they represent some of the ingredients of a platform you could support? Not a test. Just curious because well, I am about everything in general...
Yes I could support such a platform, provided those blurbs were fully fleshed out into details.
So now please tolerate a dull if provocative question but VP Biden and President Trump are major candidates because of party affiliation? Aren't most determinant voters independents looking for truth in advertising? Again, not trying to be clever. Are the Libertarians a fringe group? Seems to me their platform generally spans a number of prime sensibilities...
I'm not sure that you can say that independents are determinant voters.
According to Pew Research polling, independents are split between GOP-leaning (13%) , Dem-leaning (17%) and true independents (7%). The leaners of one party persuasion apparently are closer in their opinions to partisans leaning in the same direction than they are to leaners of the other persuasion. So GOP-leaning independents have more in common opinion-wise with strong Republicans than they do with Dem-leaning independents.
The true independents apparently are less politically engaged than the leaning independents. So overall, I'm not sure that independent voters (according to Pew, making up about 38% of voters) are really up for grabs as potential converts to Libertarianism.
The Libertarian party (LP) might be able to pull disillusioned people in their direction—I don't know. But my concern with the LP is that it doesn't seem big on collective action or agreements that would require people to limit or sacrifice their individual freedoms. Mandated universal health care, required quarantining, regulation of pollution, federal policies designed to combat global warming...from what I can tell, the LP is against those things. But we need such policies and the LP doesn't seem to offer real alternatives.
For instance: in the last election cycle, LP presidential nominee Gary Johnson was asked how he would combat global warming. He replied that he thought cap-and-trade legislation would cost far more than it would be worth. He also suggested that we should take the longlong term view: the sun will expand in billions of years, burning up the earth...so global warming is certainly in our future.
Here—just so you know I'm not making it up about the boot—a pic from the Wikipedia entry:
Johnson and Jorgenson are simply not being responsible in their policy formulations. The party teeters between the seriously naive and the f*ckit, let's be clowns.
And finally, I'm very skeptical that the LP will ever be able to forge serious, lasting coalitions with the Dems or GOP. If you can't form alliances and build a broad base, you're powerless—even if you win an election.
End qualified immunity. End civil asset forfeiture. End the drug war. End overcriminalization. End no-knock warrants. End militarization of police. End mandatory minimums.
So but maybe that holds but what about the blurbs? Do they represent some of the ingredients of a platform you could support? Not a test. Just curious because well, I am about everything in general...
Yes I could support such a platform, provided those blurbs were fully fleshed out into details.
So now please tolerate a dull if provocative question but VP Biden and President Trump are major candidates because of party affiliation? Aren't most determinant voters independents looking for truth in advertising? Again, not trying to be clever. Are the Libertarians a fringe group? Seems to me their platform generally spans a number of prime sensibilities...
End qualified immunity. End civil asset forfeiture. End the drug war. End overcriminalization. End no-knock warrants. End militarization of police. End mandatory minimums.
So but maybe that holds but what about the blurbs? Do they represent some of the ingredients of a platform you could support? Not a test. Just curious because well, I am about everything in general...
Yes I could support such a platform, provided those blurbs were fully fleshed out into details.
End qualified immunity. End civil asset forfeiture. End the drug war. End overcriminalization. End no-knock warrants. End militarization of police. End mandatory minimums.
So but maybe that holds but what about the blurbs? Do they represent some of the ingredients of a platform you could support? Not a test. Just curious because well, I am about everything in general...
End qualified immunity. End civil asset forfeiture. End the drug war. End overcriminalization. End no-knock warrants. End militarization of police. End mandatory minimums.
The presidential race is just the icing on the cake, and he isn't a shoo-in for the nomination anyway. The more-historic news: he has joined the LP. That makes him the first LP member of congress.
End qualified immunity. End civil asset forfeiture. End the drug war. End overcriminalization. End no-knock warrants. End militarization of police. End mandatory minimums.
The presidential race is just the icing on the cake, and he isn't a shoo-in for the nomination anyway. The more-historic news: he has joined the LP. That makes him the first LP member of congress.
Amash is pretty consistent, I guess I trust him as much as any of the others. As by far the most entrenched and well known name in the party he should secure the nomination. If he does I see no reason to divert from voting for the Libertarian candidate this year anymore than the rest. Either way, a hulluva lot stronger candidate than Gary Johnson who was a nice guy, but terrible candidate. I am good with him.
The presidential race is just the icing on the cake, and he isn't a shoo-in for the nomination anyway. The more-historic news: he has joined the LP. That makes him the first LP member of congress.
Libertarian presidential candidate Jacob Hornberger provided on Saturday a clear example of such an approach in regard to US military policy. Speaking at the Pennsylvania Libertarian Party state convention, Hornberger stated:
Yeah, I agree, bring the troops home from these so-called
forever wars. But, itâs not enough. Bring them home from everywhere:
Korea, Europe â World War IIâs over, Latin America, wherever. And thatâs
not all. Discharge them as they hit American shores. Put them in the
private sector. And then start concentrating on dismantling this alien
form of governmental structure called a national security state. Get rid
of the CIA. Get rid of the NSA. Get rid of the Pentagon, this whole
military-industrial complex. Restore a limited-government republic with a
basic military force.
It will come as a shock no doubt that Hitchens wasn't addressing libertarians, but Objectivists. He was a frequent guest at the Cato Institute and Reason magazine. He also wrote admiring biographies of libertarian heroes Thomas Payne and Thomas Jefferson.
You don't make the intellectual evolution Hitchens underwent in one step. Along the way he had a lot to say, but his advocacy for a number of libertarian principles (free expression chief among them) was a constant.
He has a great quote from Norberto Bobbio at the end:
There were only a few of us who preserved a small bag in which, before throwing ourselves into the sea, we deposited for safekeeping the most salutary fruits of the European intellectual tradition, the value of enquiry, the ferment of doubt, a willingness to dialogue, a spirit of criticism, moderation of judgment, philological scruple, a sense of the complexity of things. Many, too many, deprived themselves of this baggage: they either abandoned it, considering it a useless weight; or they never possessed it, throwing themselves into the waters before having the time to acquire it. I do not reproach them; but I prefer the company of the others. Indeed, I suspect that this company is destined to grow, as the years bring wisdom and events shed new light on things.
When we launched the Niskanen Center in January 2015, we happily identified ourselves as libertarians. Sure, we were heterodox libertarians, but there are many schools of libertarianism beyond those promoted by Charles Koch’s political operations. The school we identified with was a left-libertarianism concerned with social justice (a libertarian perspective that I’ve defended in debates with more orthodox libertarians here and here). That worldview lacked an institutional voice in 2015. Our ambition was to create a space for it and, in so doing, redefine what it meant to be libertarian in the 21st century.
I have abandoned that libertarian project, however, because I have come to abandon ideology. This essay is an invitation for you to do likewise — to walk out of the “clean and well-lit prison of one idea.” Ideology encourages dodgy reasoning due to what psychologists call “motivated cognition,” which is the act of deciding what you want to believe and using your reasoning power, with all its might, to get you there. Worse, it encourages fanaticism, disregard for social outcomes, and invites irresolvable philosophical disputes. It also threatens social pluralism — which is to say, it threatens freedom.
The better alternative is not moral relativism. The better alternative is moderation, a commodity that is rapidly disappearing in political life, with dangerous consequences for the American republic.
I believe that monetary policy should be a priority issue for Libertarians and libertarian-minded folks.
James Bullard, St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank president just called for interest rate cuts for a couple of reasons, among them, to increase the inflation rate which is sitting well below the 2% target at roughly 1.6% in recent years.
I believe that the inflation target should be 0% and the US Federal Reserve should drop the employment mandate. Insure price stability (including financial asset stability) and then get the hell out of the way.
Many macro economists believe that positive rates of inflation are necessary in order to fool agents into better outcomes. It is paternalism of the worst kind and contradicts the approach taken to most economic policy issues by economists who tend to favour transparency and accurate information.
