Slashdot Mirror
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.
Other than winning, what hopes do you have for the Libertarian Party in the 2004 election?
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
Regarding our current system, what do you think can be done to encourage people to vote for third party candidates? It seems to me that most people still feel it's a "wasted vote."
Also, editors - great theme!
How does the Libertarian Party, whose platform is a complete free market economy with personal responsibility, expect the economy to prosper with the recent corporate scandals such as Enron?
Regarding your description of free trade vs. state corporatism at your website, How can we prevent the propagation of Multinational corporations without resorting to government regulation? Is that form of Government regulation a necessary evil, or is there a method for preventing the formation of huge multinationals and monopolies without the government restricting free trade? If so, how would this method be implemented?
Let's make a difference
Where do you see America in 5/10/15 years under its current leadership? Where do you see America in the same timeframe with you as the president? What broad steps will you take to get us there?
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
I tend to hold a Libertarian point of view but you have NO chance of ever being elected President. Aren't there more viable methods to get your viewpoint heard such as PACs or lobbyists?
Slashdot, home of supporters of free software, free music, and free speech.Except for Moderators that disagree with you.
Mr. Badnarik, as president, would you support breaking up monopolies such as Microsoft to enable competition?
Thank you.
In my experience, a lot of what the libertarian platform stands for makes a lot of sense and I whole-heartedly agree with. The problem is, the parts that I don't agree with seem absolutely batshit insane (i.e. privatizing sidewalks? WTF?). So my question is basically, do I find myself agreeing with you because I'm a little crazy or disagreeing with you because you're a little crazy.
What are you views and hopes for privacy and security for the citizens of the internet age, and how do you proactively aim to safegaurd and give back our rights that have been eroded away. (INDUCE act, PATRIOT act, et al)
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
What's your view on the Patriot act? What, if any, parts do you think need to be changed, and why?
I have voeted Libertarian the last 3 elections but this year the stakes are too high. You know you can't win. Have you considered "Deaning" your supporters and asking them to vote for Bush or Kerry depending on who you think should be President (besides yourself)?
This
The downside of removing the safety net is that there will be people who don't have the skills needed to succeed; we can't all be the best at what we do after all. Any system has winners and losers. What is your plan for the losers under your system? Charities only do so much after all.
314-15-9265
Given the current political climate of entitlement, pork-barrel spending, and district vote-buying, how can we get this country back into compliance with the spirit and letter of the Constitution?
Mr. Badnarik, a two-parter if I may ...
1. If elected, what stance would you take on the PATRIOT Act, DMCA, and INDUCE?
2. Would you do anything to try and reduce the influence of nutjob organizations (Fellowship, C-Street Center, etc) in federal politics? For that matter, would you do anything to return Washington to citizens and take it away from lobbyists/corporations?
vodka, straight up, thank you!
The structure of the US voting system is such that two major parties appear to be the only stable political alignment (though on a couple of occasions, one of the major parties has imploded and been replaced).
Given this, why is a 3rd (4th/5th) party a good use of political resources, rather than explicitly trying to shift one or both of the major parties toward your viewpoint?
How can you even begin to be a viable choice if you don't have candidates across the board in a majority of electorial races. Even if your positions are fantastic on the issues without at least a glimmer of support from the congress you are dead in the water.
Q: How would you be able to lead and govern effectively when you would very little support from the congress?
Howard ran for New York Govener under your party's name. What do you think about:
Howard's fight with the current FCC
Howard's hard turn Left
Howard Stern being your FCC Commissioner.
This
As we've learned over the past few decades, free speech only applies to public property. Private owners can evict anyone they want for whatever reason. If there is no public property, how are free speech rights protected? Would there be any free speech rights at all in a Libertarian world for people who aren't well off enough to buy property?
Could you explain your belief that the United States is to blame for 9/11?
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Do you believe that the U.S. Government has the right to invade countries run by dictators like Saddam Hussein and liberate the people by establishing a free society even if those countries do not threaten the United States?
In a nutshell, how does the libertarian principle of non-initiation of force apply to foreign dictators? Who or what has the right to unseat these dictators?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I am an ill-fitting member of one of the two dominant political parties. I have been interested in the past in libertarian ideals and thoughts and did some amount of research.
My understanding is that libertarians have a belief system where individual are free from regulation and rules.
This seems like a great way to live until I start running some of the possible scenarios and consequences to my family, specifcally my children.
What sorts of regulations and rules if any do libertarians believe are necessary to prevent the descent into "survival of the fittest"?
I have seen several of your posters that include, among other things, the following bullet point: "Every Federal Regulator that we fire produces 150 new jobs, enough to re-hire all of those federal regulators and the able-bodied poor."
What I wanted to know is, how does that work exactlly. If I were to say fire a building safety inspector, an Air Traffic controller, or an inspector with the FDA how would that produce jobs? And, how would we guarantee that no adverse effect (salmopnella in the food) would result?
I fully support the Libertarian platform and ideals and I have every intention of voting for you in November. My only beef with the libertarian approach is timing. You've stated that in your first couple months of holding office you'll eliminate the federal reserve, kick the U.N. out of the country, and bring as many of our troops home as possible, among other radical (but good) changes. My question is this: how do you plan to handle the societal impact of these changes? Eliminating the federal reserve is not something I'd expect to go over lightly in the financial markets, for example. Much of the Libertarian platform is a severe departure from the current state of the nation -- I feel that society would need time to adapt to these changes.
As the offical Libertarian party cadidate for president, where do you stand on the issue of intellectual property? Should it be considered the same as traditional property, or should IP be not subjected to the same protections that physical property is? And do you feel that your personal views on the subject reflect the views of the majority of the party itself, or is this an issue that has the potential to polarize your party much the same way that abortion does for the Democrats and Republicans?
Why are you for unlimited immigration with no caps and no requirments?
Mr. Badnarik, I see that the Environment didn't make your web site's issues list. If elected, what would you do to help preserve the planet?
I have scowered lp.org for the answer to this, but could not as it is not on the platform.
Libertarians aim to preserve personal liberty above all else. This would indicate that IP is not belived in, yet I think the party realized the nessesity for "securing for limited times [exclusive rights]" whether it be art or invention.
How would the LP shape IP in order to "advance the process of the arts and sciences", while balancing peronal liberties?
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Having watched your constitution class and having kept up with your blog, I'm aware of where you stand on most issues. However, I don't believe you've taken a stand on copyrights and how you see them effecting technology and society. Do you view copyrights as an inherent right given to the person who created the work, or do you see it as a privilege given to those people by the government as a proxy for the people? Many people would say copyright has turned into a weapon for large corporations, established insitutions and people. The constitution grants a limited time protection for copyrights as you know, however the current terms being much greater than the author's life are hardly limited in the scope of insuring future creations by the author.
My question is, then, do you view the current copyright situation as constitutional and correct? If not, then what do you propose to change to weight the situation back towards the common person?
That's scary.
How do you feel about what the Democrats are doing to Ralph Nader, preventing free choice by blocking him from the ballot because of some insane notion that someone doesn't have the right to run for President if they're not a Democrat or a Republican? Have you had any troubles yourself in this regard?
In your own words, what does the constition and its bill of rights mean?
Abbreviated answers are acceptable, but please no 'political-speak'..
After that, what do you have planned to protect what you just have described, and how is that different then the other 2 main candidates plans?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Where do you see the the Free State Project in New Hampshire leading, both for your party and for the nation in general?
I am officially gone from
The Libertarian Party platform advocates separation of education and state. How would you go about reforming the nation's educational system without a massive disruption to a student's schoolwork?
Do you support approval voting or some other non-plurality voting system as a way to allow voters to support less popular candidates without "throwing their vote away"?
-jim
Most members of the public are scared by what is viewed as "extremism" in the Libertarian party. "End the war on drugs" and "Abolish the IRS" are scary changes for many people to make all at once. Why does the party resist pushing a more incremental platform? Why won't the party say things like "In our first term we will legalize marijuana and marijuana only. We will closely study and follow the ramifications of this policy in terms of savings to our military and police forces, crime rates, prison overcrowding, and market factors such as pricing and tax revenues generated. At the end of x number of years we will judge the experiment and debate expanding or restricting other drugs." The party always seems to know where it wants to go, but it is weak in explaining to the people how we will go about getting there.
There have been proposals to eliminate the electoral college. Notably, Slate has run a series of pieces calling it "America's worst college." Slate's coverage has examined some of the political difficulties in trying to change the system and has proposed some possible solutions.
It's clear from the results of 1992 that the electoral college, as currently implemented at the national and state level, tends to turn small spreads into large ones, and eliminates 3rd parties altogether. As a 3rd party candidate, this must be an important issue to you (after ballot access, perhaps the most important one).
How do you propose to address this? Would you support an amendment to the US Constitution to abolish the Electors in favor of direct popular vote? Or, would it make more sense to address it state by state, using legislation to split the electors proportionately within each state (as Maine and Nebraska do)?
How do you respond to this situation?
A paper mill opens upstream from a small town. The mill begins dumping chemicals into the river. As the town's health problems slowly begin to increase, property values begin to drop. Eventually the townspeople are dying young of cancer, birthing children with horrific birth defects, and are too poor to be able to move.
This happens today when we have some sort of regulation. It has been empirically demonstrated that most Americans don't care enough about these issues to substantially alter their buying habits to prevent this from happening. If the government abdicates its regulation role, if we unfetter corporations from laws demanding that they behave within certain norms, if the government doesn't have resources to help these people, should we just turn a blind eye and think of these problems as the cost of doing business. Higher GDP built on the lives of someone else's children?
While it is very clear that the government regulates any number of things, it is not consequently the case that no regulation is a better solution.
If I had to place my ideals under a specific label (though I hate political labels which are often used to avoid thinking about issues), I'd have to say I'm a progressive libertarian.
I'm with Mr. Badnarik 100% on most of his core stances (kudos too for recognizing state's rights in the drug war too). I'm a vehement believer in The Constitution (not that there aren't parts I don't agree with; I'd just prefer we obey it as written OR amend it - not pretend it says something else.) However, I'm curious about your stances on several things.
A stable dollarYou state, "The Constitution delegates the power to coin money to Congress. As your president, I'll insist that they discharge that responsibility instead of fobbing the job off on an external entity like the Fed. And I'll veto legislation for any such operation that doesn't meet the true test of money: It is either made of gold or silver, or can be redeemed for a fixed amount of gold or silver."
I take issue with the last sentence.
Money doesn't need to be redeemable for something in finite supply (in fact, as population increases, that's a bad thing) to be stable, it simply needs to be equally hard to earn. Tying the value of a dollar to a consumer price index or, even better, the population might be wiser.
It is also important to note that The Fed is not the external entity coining money. When banks and other lending institutions practice fractional reserve lending, they reduce the value of the dollar. [An explanation of this phenomenon can be found at http://www.progress.org/reform21.htm]
Would you propose or stand behind legislation to eliminate fractional reserve lending?
The social safety netCentralized government programs have the net effect of making people less personally responsible. I think a lot of resistance to libertarianism comes from the feeling that they want to cut all the safety nets before something (private charity, LVT, whatever) is in place. Regardless, it would be disastrous to move immediately from a society in which the government has taken responsibility away from citizens to one where everyone is fully responsible for himself or herself.
What are your plans for migrating from one model to the other?
Government funding The Federal Income Tax is clearly constitutional (yeah, I know Ohio wasn't a state until 1953), but it still is a tax on labor, which is deleterious. The same goes for a sales tax. Other ways to fund the valid functions of government include a "head tax" and recovery of the rental value of things such as land, the electromagnetic spectrum, pollution permits, etc.New Zealand and Australia are experimenting with LVT while Iceland is experimenting with pollition permits and citizen's dividends. I think there is room to be U.S. to be more progressive and foster more equality while adhering to the basic tenets of libertarianism.
What is your plan for funding government while remaining consistent to core libertarian principles?
Intellectual propertyClearly patents and copyrights are government-granted and, therefore privileges but are necessary for a technologically advanced society. It seems that lately things have been getting out of hand leading in part to some of the problems you site as issues (such as the cost of medicine.)
What are your feelings on the current length of intellectual property claims and the veritable "patent mill" that the USPTO has become? How would steer intellectual property back toward the constitutional concept of "for a limited time?"
"I compare [open source vs. non-open source] to science vs. witchcraft." linus
As we all know, liberals favor freedom in social issues and control over economic issues while conservatives favor freedom in economic issues and control over social issues. However, increasingly it seems that both liberals and conservatives are tilting toward authoritarianism. Bush has signed into law various entitlement programs, as well as trade tariffs, and Democrats rarely criticize the War on Drugs any longer.
Do you think this shift toward authoritarianism by both major parties will result in a paradigm shift in the country where we no longer discuss liberalism vs. conservatism but rather, authoritarianism vs. libertarianism, and if so, would this allow the Libertarian Party to finally get the recognition it has worked hard for over the past few decades, or are we stuck with this conservatism vs. liberalism battle for ages to come?