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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.
I think the original poster was thinking more along these lines: Fraud may still be illegal, but under a "perfect" libertarian government, would an entity like the SEC even exist? After all, it is the job of the SEC to regulate the markets. Doesn't that very job contradict the libertarian ideals? If the there isn't an entity regulating the markets, how do you catch the Enron's, the WorldCom's, the CNBC talking heads that are hyping a company that they have money invested in, etc?
"If the there isn't an entity regulating the markets, how do you catch the Enron's, the WorldCom's, the CNBC talking heads that are hyping a company that they have money invested in, etc?"
You mean like they did with Enron and WorldCom? It was the government that was helping to prop Enron up. Although an interesting question I think a better one would be this.
The market is supposed to be moderated by the consumers. How do we give the consumers the knowledge they need to moderate the market intelligently?
Michael,
I notice that when I quiz people on their beliefs on many issues, a large portion of them have views that are in line with the Libertarian Party. It's my belief that many people are Libertarians and don't know it.
Has the Libertarian Party considered spending more money on mainstream advertising to inform people what the party beliefs are? It seems that especially in the geek culture, Libertarian views are very prevalent. Have you thought about a way to target this group?
It would be in the Libertarian Party's best interest to target geeks. Here's why. When we don't like something, we have a great knack to make it seem evil, like say, Microsoft and SCO. This attitude bleeds over to our friends, family, and mainstream media. If we love something, like say, Linux and Google, The opposite effect happens. People seem to trust us when we are for, or against something.
With us geeks, the Libertarian Party has the opportunity to change public perception on how the public views Republicans, Democrats, and Libertarians. We're VERY good at making something seem good or evil.
Any thoughts on this?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The story is a dupe, the topic is boring, the facts weren't checked. WE GET IT!!
To elaborate even further, since in a two party system, there is not effective threat from a third party, the parties can collude against the people while using the other party as the eternal "bogeyman". "Hey, you better vote for us or you'll get screwed even HARDER!" It also tends to divide people on irrelevant and superficial things rather than actual policy. For instance, the parties are mostly culturally divisive. I vote for candidate X because he has a southern twang and you vote for candidate Y because he has a new england accent; because, in fact, their effective policies on a vast variety of things are very similar. Total BULLSHIT craven reasons that just serve to divide and distract the country.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Given that you claim in your biography that you:
"Became interested in the U.S. Constitution in 1983 and began a life-long journey in self-study of this founding document of the country he is so proud to call his home."
how do you reconcile your belief that the federal income tax has no basis in law with the fact that the 16th amendment clearly states: "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."?
Similarly, you have outlined a plan for confining prisoners to their beds for the first month of their incarcaration, in order to atrophy their muscles, thereby reducing their ability to make trouble. How do you reconcile this proposal with the 8th amenment: "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted"?
Given that these two proposals of yours (among others) seem to stand at odds with the constitution itself, how do you expect the average informed voter to come to any conclusion other than that you have no more respect (and possibly less) for the constitution of this country than the current administration does? Are you in fact another "I'm for the parts of the constitution that I agree with" politician, or do you believe in the authority of the entirity of that document? And if you do agree with it's authority, will you now either renounce these ideas or provide a detailed argument for their compatibility with the constitution as it stands?
> In a two-party system you will automatically get two extreme views, left and right, because the two parties have to exaggerate their differences to get as many voters as they can.
Actually, I think we're getting the opposite effect. We're getting 2 candidates pretty close overall, because they fear distancing themselves too much from the middle states.
It's as if they realize all the far-right and far-left will vote along party lines even if a monkey was running, so they focus their campaignins and platforms to convert the swayable middle.
Cynically, both are rich Yale grads who favor big government, albeit in different ways. While their social agendas are very different, that (surprisingly) hasn't been the major focus lately.
As a friend from England said, 'you keep saying you have a liberal and conservative party. We see it as you have a conservative and a more-conservative party.'
Not stating my own party view, just pointing out that parties seem to drift to center.
A.
Charity only does so much because our means to donate is severely hampered by government -- both financially and psychologically. Did you know that the average US citizen is forced to pay nearly 50% of their yearly earnings to government through federal, state, and local taxes combined? It's no surprise that the typical citizen is unwilling to donate, after government assumes both the means and the responsibility.
I don't know about you, but I'd be a hell of a lot more willing to donate if I wasn't so busy making ends meet on what little of my earnings government "allows" me to keep.
I think questions should focus on the party's policy - that's the most important thing, really. For example:
"Much can be said for leaving business choices to businesses. However, in humanity's last big experiments with unregulated commerce (during the industrial revolution), we saw 60 hour work weeks, miniscule pay, inhumane working conditions, child labor, extensive investor fraud, and an appalling divide between the poor and wealthy. Does your party have any plans for trying to prevent such abuses in its quest for corporate deregulation, or is that not something that the government should concern itself with?"
I was watching this thing on TV about some guy named Hitler. Someone should stop him!
One thing people seem to forget when they blast the electoral college is how population is distributed in this country. A little googling showed that as of a few years ago, in "developed nations" on average 76+% of the population resided in "urban" areas. Ask yourself, if our presidential elections were based solely on number of votes, what happens when someone campaigns solely for the needs of the urban population and utterly neglects the rural? My guess is, unless the other candidate does the same, he will be pretty much guaranteed a victory. Think about that for a second. If a massive majority of your population fits a certain demographic, your best bet is to appeal solely to that majority. The electoral college, while IMHO fairly broken, does at least guarantee that the votes of large expanses of farm country might have a chance of making a difference. The electoral college helps ensure majority rule with some consideration for minority rights. I don't know that it's the best solution, but I definitely don't believe a flat out majority is the way to go.
This one is fairly easy, I posted my reply to similar sentiments in my weblog not long ago. I'll paste the contents below, to avoid blatant whoring.
As I see it, a vote for a third party carries far more weight than a vote for one of the primary parties. When you vote, for instance, Libertarian, your vote gives them proportionally more media coverage, funding, and ballot access than either of the established parties receive. As recent example, both Greens and Libertarians received enormously disproportional amounts of coverage (the Greens in particular) after the 2000 election. Why? The percentage of their votes, in many states, was well above the margin between the two primary candidates. Most political analysts believed that the Green Party significantly swung the outcome of the 2000 presidential election, and as a result, they gained more media coverage than anyone could have predicted.
Third parties also gain in less inflammatory ways when they receive more votes. It helps them receive campaign funding from the federal government, for one. A few more votes one year, in many cases, will allow the party to run several more candidates the next. All thanks to more funding. Even more importantly, in many states, more votes are the precursor to ballot access, which in turn helps the party concentrate on campaigning rather than petitioning. Today, ballot access is one of the most pressuring obstacles facing third parties; in states like Georgia, only one third party candidate has ever been on the ballot for the United States House of Representatives.
How does this happen? In Georgia, third parties must submit a petition signed by over 5% of the number of registered voters in the district in order to get on the ballot for any office. When the voter roles haven't been purged in a decade, leaving both dead voters and invalidated voters still listed, the true number in many cases exceeds 10%. Even worse, due to gerrymandering, many third parties have no clue about the final geographical layout of districts, until a month or two prior to the petition deadlines. When the district lines are changed again and again, many petition signatures which were once valid are no longer, since the signatory no longer lives within the correct district. I am digressing substantially from my original purpose, but there is plenty to read regarding ballot access, for those who are interested.
Back to the original topic. We've covered voting for third parties, but if you look closely, does it really matter if we have a Republican or a Democrat president? It's a toss-up to how much they will suck, and it's usually irrelevant what party they're from. Bush hasn't been the best president ever, but Clinton was pretty poor, too. And now, it seems like the two parties are converging. Republicans are creating bureaucracy and spending like crazy. Democrats are opposing gay marriage and won't stop the drug war. As far as I'm concerned, it's two heads of the same hydra.
So go ahead, throw away that vote of yours. I insist.
No comment.
Libertarianism places much emphasis on the theory that individuals can pull themselves up by their bootstraps to success. With good enough education, the theory goes, even the poorest members of our society should be able to become wealthy entrepreneurs. Under this model, if you're impoverished, it's simply because you're not trying hard enough. But bootstrapping is a myth; even if it were possible (for many people it is just not), millions of people do not have the desire to start their own business, and simply want to make a fair and livable wage working their 9-5 job.
Because Libertarianism is even more conservative than Republicanism, impoverished people would be denied many of the resources they need to survive. Libertarians call for the dismantling of welfare, Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, and the reliance on private charities to care for our neediest citizens. Reagan gave us a taste of this logic when he all but dismantled the federal financial aid program for college students. The theory was that the private sector would step up and help our nation's students.
They didn't.
Instead, students and their families often face the burden of massive debt upon graduation, limiting their ability to start building their lives. The Libertarians point out that Americans already contribute over $125 billion to charity already. But Social Security alone contributes $535 billion to our citizens. That much cannot be generated from charitable contributions, even if the tax benefit is increased.
If Libertarians such as yourself had their way, our nation's poor would sink even deeper into poverty and debt while our nation's wealthy would grow wealthier and wealthier. Sure, the rich would donate to private charities to lessen their tax burden--but less "sexy" charities would suffer. Would you rather give money to a charity for mentally disabled homeless people (who now receive Social Security), or to Cancer research?
The role of government is to take care of its citizens, and ensure that we do the right things for society. Private corporations and organizations have no such goals, and cannot be entrusted with such responsibilities. If Libertarians had their way, the government would step back and let people sink or swim. This is short-sighted, cynical and above all, cruel.
Which brings me to my question, Mr. Badnarik: If the government is there to care for its citizens, why do you want to outsource this responsibility to the private sector, which has no real incentive to work for the public good? In short, where is the compassion?
Sincerely, Ben Syverson
The main point of Libertarianism is to remove these responsibilities from the United States Federal Government.
We live in a nation of many governments, local, state, and of course one federal government.
Why must retirement be a federal program? Why must healthcare?
It would be easy to judge the effectiveness of these social programs if some states are involved and some not.
I would say that most of the tax dollars should be going to the state, not federal government. The federal government can take care of national defense and that would be the most expensive item at the federal level. Just about everything else should go to the state.
If your state wants a healthcare program, then they can do it. If it fails, other states hopefully won't adopt it. Same with retirement.
Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.