Ask Libertarian Presidential Candidate Michael Badnarik

Our first interview subject for politics.slashdot.org is the Libertarian Party candidate for US President, Michael Badnarik. You can read his blog to learn more about him. Standard Slashdot interview rules apply: Post your questions today in this discussion. Moderators do your thing. We'll select ~10 questions, and hopefully get answers later this week.

Comments

Re:Why do you bother?

[gfxguy]

From lp.org:

Over 600 Libertarians are serving in public office -- more than all other third parties combined.

Baby steps...

Re:odd background for a presidential candidate.

[Peyna]

U.S. Constitution, Article I Section 8:

"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;"

Is that a good enough explanation?

Re:Question

[dougmc]

How can we change the system so people have the choice between multiple canidates and not just two?

That's actually pretty easy. 1) you require that the winner be elected by 50+% of the vote, rather than just a simple majority, and 2) You allow people to vote for (or rank) multiple candidates, with varying ways of handling these votes depending on the exact plan.

It's a bit more complicated than that, but that's the general idea. I don't see this ever getting passed in the US, but it's certainly possible to set up an election where you can vote for the 3rd party candidate and yet your vote isn't really wasted.

Re:odd background for a presidential candidate.

[Chess_the_cat]

Badnarik believes that the federal income tax has no legal authority and that people are justified in refusing to file a tax return until such time as the IRS provides them with an explanation of its authority to collect the tax.

This guy is an idiot. The Sixteenth Amendment gives the IRS authority:

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

If that's not enough this pdf clearly outlines where the IRS gets it's authority and why US citizens must pay income tax.

Re:odd background for a presidential candidate.

[Paladin128]

Yes, but the US government had to add the 16th ammendment to collect income tax. Before that, the wording you quote only specifies duties, imposts, and excise. The ambiguous word "taxes" doesn't allow for the form of tax collection we have today.

There is much evidence that the 16th ammendment was NEVER RATIFIED by congress. It should be repealed, and the federal government should have NO power to tax individuals directly. Excise and tariffs can support a libertarian form of government.

Federal Reserve / Gradualism

[Adolatra]

In most of your appearances and in your debate with Dave Cobb, you emphasized that one of your most immediate actions would be to end the Federal Reserve and dramatically restructure the currency system. Given that the market can take considerable swings if Alan Greenspan so much as sneezes, have you considered the market reaction in response to a sudden standard shift? Regardless of your personal policies, if the public confidence in a metal standard isn't there, how would you prevent a panic? Would it be possible to take a more gradualist approach to Libertarian policies, in order to do things like pay down the public debt first?

Scaremongering

[MarkusQ]

The stakes are too high? Isn't that just another way of saying that you've bought into the scaremongering of one side or the other?

It could be that he's just tired of seeing people killed in what amounts to a relgious war between the "our" christians and "their" muslems. What is it, 20,000 people or so? Not WWIII perhaps, but still a lot of dead people whose main failing seems to have been not backing the right brand of god.

Yes, I know there have been all sorts of other explanations offered (9/11, WMD, etc.) but those don't hold up to a minute's thought. If we were striking back for 9/11, why didn't we even look at Saudi Arabia? If it was WMD, why are North Korea (or South Korea for that matter) largly ignored?

I'm a Republican, and not particularly scared, but I'm sick of my country and my party being hijacked by the "moral" right to go kill infidels. You don't need to "threaten" how much worse four more years of this will be.

-- MarkusQ

Bittorrent's of Michael Badnarik videos

[hitchhacker]

I can't believe this hasn't been posted yet:
downloadable videos of Michael Badnarik via bittorrent
The classes on the constitution are extremely insightful.

-metric