Slashdot Mirror
Libertarian Presidential Candidate Michael Badnarik Answers
Re:Question (Score:5, Interesting) by celeritas_2 (750289) (#10237051)
How can we change the system so people have the choice between multiple candidates and not just two?
It's a long, hard, uphill battle. A lot of Americans don't know that until the 1890s, the government didn't print ballots at all. Voters wrote their own, or used pre-printed ballots provided by the party of their choice. The adoption of the "Australian ballot" gave the politicians control of what choices were put in front of voters.
Today, the Libertarian Party -- and other third parties, of course -- have to fight to get on the ballot. In some states, we have to gather enormous numbers of signatures. In others, we have to drag the state to court. We've been very active on this front. In 1980, 1992, 1996 and 2000, the Libertarian Party's candidates appeared on the ballot in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. This year, it's 48 states and DC -- we missed the signature requirement in New Hampshire and are in court in Oklahoma.
A better question, of course, is how do we offer the American people REAL choices -- choices they can vote for without fearing that their vote will be "wasted" on a candidate who "can't win?"
There are various alternative voting systems that address this problem.
Instant Runoff Voting allows the voter to assign a rank to each candidate; if no candidate gets a majority of "first place" votes, then "second place" votes are counted, and so on, until someone gets a majority. This allows people to choose a "third party" candidate as their first preference, but still get a vote between frontrunners if their candidate loses.
Personally, I prefer Approval Voting. In this method, each voter can select as many candidates as he likes -- he can vote for all the candidates whom he can live with. All of the votes are counted, and the candidate with the most votes wins. The result is that the winner is not necessarily "the most popular," but "the one that the most voters are okay with."
Of course, the "major" parties don't approve of anything that might threaten to break their shared monopoly on power. That's why they've instituted the Australian ballot and draconian ballot access laws. But we'll keep fighting them until we win.
timing (Score:5, Interesting) by j1mmy (43634)
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.
I guess my first response to that has to be that for a Libertarian to be elected to the White House right now would indicate massive social upheaval already. Yes, my ideas are radical -- but my election would prove that America is ready for radical solutions.
You're right, though. It isn't as simple as that. Stating my goals and what I'd attempt to do is not the same as stating what would happen. The presidency is an office of limited power, and I'd actually spend a good deal of time struggling with Congress and the courts to get my solutions implemented, giving Americans time to prepare for the changes.
Of course, with some of the changes I'm proposing, I've set a longer timeline on anyway. With American troops in more than 135 countries around the globe, I don't plan to just buy them all airline tickets and tell them to catch the next plane home. My plan for Iraq is a 90-day phased withdrawal concentrating on the physical security of the troops. For drawing down the US military presence in Germany, Korea, Japan and elsewhere, I've proposed a two-year timeline, with the first actual troop pullouts beginning at the end of the first year. That's quicker than George W. Bush's 10-year timeline, but it isn't unduly hasty.
My expectation is that if we eliminate the Fed's monopoly on currency provision, the Fed will continue exist -- it will just have to compete with other currency options on a truly level playing field without the government demanding that its currency be accepted instead of others. People can decide whether they want to hold their wealth in green pieces of paper backed only by seven trillion dollars in debt, or in currency coined of, or backed by, some scarce commodity. I'm not planning to haul Alan Greenspan and the Board of Governors off to Indiana for death by lethal injection or anything like that.
My job as a candidate is to articulate a vision of the changes I propose and to argue forcefully for their implementation. The checks and balances which our nation's founders wrote into the Constitution provide a framework in which those changes can be implemented with the minimum possible chaos.
How to reform Electoral College? (Score:5, Interesting) by code_rage (130128)
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)?
I have to tell you that I'm skeptical of electoral college reform at the federal level. Yes, the system has flaws, but I haven't seen any alternative proposals that don't have serious flaws themselves.
On the state level, I do advocate choosing electors by congressional district as Maine and Nebraska do, with the two non-district electors going to the overall winner of the popular vote. That would be more reflective of overall American voter sentiment.
Going to a straight popular vote would, perversely, represent the end of American democracy. Candidates would be inclined to cater to a few urban areas where they can buy the most votes for their buck (or their promise), effectively disenfranchising rural voters. To the extent that the presidency is a representative office, it should represent Peoria and Birmingham as much as it represents New York and Los Angeles.
"Should have gone to..." (Score:4, Interesting) DrEldarion (114072) (#)
When somebody you strongly dislike is running, it's very tempting to vote for the person who is more likely to win against them rather than the person whose views you agree with more.
What is your response to the people who say that a vote given to a third-party candidate is wasted and should have gone to one of the main two parties, if only to make sure that the "bad candidate" doesn't win?
If the "wasted vote" argument ever held any water, it doesn't any more. The two major parties have moved toward a weird, non-existent "center" for the last 50 years, to the point where it's difficult to tell them apart.
We could argue all day about whether Bush or Kerry is the "lesser evil." The fact is that they both support the war in Iraq. They both oppose gun rights. They both supported the PATRIOT Act. They both support the war on drugs. They both support confiscatory taxation. They both support ruinously high levels of spending, huge deficits and increasing debt.
It's hard to tell them apart on the real issues. They spend their time scrapping over "swing votes" in the gray area of the "center" -- which means, in practice, "how do I not make too many people too angry to vote for me?" That's no way to do politics. Politics, in my view, should be as unimportant as possible -- but where it's important, it has to value freedom, remain rooted in principle and be forward-looking.
All I can tell the "lesser of two evils" folks is that if they keep voting for evil, they'll keep getting evil. If you don't like the way things are, how do you change it by voting for more of the same?
Ideology vs pragmatism (Score:4, Interesting) by Charles Dodgeson (248492)
Libertarianism certainly is an appealing ideology, but are you concerned that ideological based politics (whether yours or others) often precludes the adoption of pragmatic solutions to real problems?
I guess that depends on the ideology ;-)
Seriously, all politics is ideology-based. Unthinking majoritarianism, Machiavellian strategizing and centrist compromise are ideologies too. If they weren't ideologies 100 years ago, they are now, because they are the lodestones which guide our politicians' every action. And you see where that's gotten us.
I'm not an impractical man. I know that I can't snap my fingers and get the results that I want without consequence. I realize that my ideas will face resistance in implementation. The extent to which I am willing to compromise is that I'm willing to fight for what I can get, and wait for the rest only as long as absolutely necessary. What I'm not willing to do is abandon my goals or trade them away.
My approach is geared to a single criterion -- does this policy or that action serve freedom? I'm willing to be pragmatic in pursuing policies that affirmatively answer that criterion. I'm not willing to compromise that criterion away.
Are some free trade restrictions necessary? (Score:5, Interesting) by toasted_calamari (670180)
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?
"Free trade," like any other term, is often coopted to mean something other than what it should. In the context of modern America and the globalization phenomenon, it is often used to refer to a web of regulations, restrictions, subsidies, government-created monopolies and privileges. That's not free trade.
First, let's look at the nature of corporations. They come into existence with the grant of a government charter. They sell stock under the auspices and pursuant to the rules of the Securities and Exchange Commission. In court, they are treated as "persons" with "rights" -- and for purposes of liability, their stockholders are held harmless beyond the value of their stock itself.
A market in which single proprietorships and partnerships must compete against what are essentially mini-branches of government, with all the attendant privileges and immunities, isn't a free market. It's a rigged game.
I don't oppose growth or success. I support unrestricted trade across international borders, and I support companies developing themselves internationally. But the fact is that corporate growth today isn't natural market growth. It's growth encouraged and enhanced by government-dispensed privilege. It's artificial, and it distorts rather than serves the market.
We need to restore justice to the system. Stockholders are owners, and should be liable for the consequences of that ownership like any other owners. I have no doubt that the market will come up with "portfolio insurance" to protect the stockholders from ruinous claims, but that in itself will provide a market check on unrestrained, unaccountable growth -- companies which act irresponsibly will find that their stockholders can't buy, or have to pay unreasonably high, insurance premiums, and therefore aren't interested in having the stock.
Corporations don't have rights and don't face consequences. People do. Tinkering with that has been disastrous. It's time to get back to full responsibility for individuals instead of government privilege for corporations.
Intellectual Property (Score:5, Interesting) by geoff313 (718010)
As the official Libertarian party candidate 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?
I think the issue is moving too fast for true polarization within the Libertarian Party. Libertarians hold disparate views on intellectual property, but we also realize that it's an issue that will resolve itself as time goes on.
The Constitution empowers Congress to protect intellectual property with copyright and patent laws. Sans a constitutional amendment, they'll continue to grapple with the problems that the new technologies represent. And they'll probably make mistakes, like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
But, ultimately, the marketplace will decide how intellectual property is handled. The "file-sharing wars" are proving that. How much money have the older firms put into trying to pour new wine -- MP3s, CD burners, peer-to-peer networks -- into the old skins of copyright law? They've done some damage, but they've been completely ineffective in forcing the market into their preconceived notions of how it should operate.
I can't give you a more substantive answer about intellectual property. It's an issue that I've thought about a lot, but the only conclusion I've come to is that freedom will out -- and that we'll know what that freedom looks like when the smoke clears.
Induce our vote (Score:5, Interesting) by tod_miller (792541)
What are you views and hopes for privacy and security for the citizens of the internet age, and how do you proactively aim to safeguard and give back our rights that have been eroded away. (INDUCE act, PATRIOT act, et al)
I'm firmly on record as opposed to the PATRIOT Act and the INDUCE Act. As president, I'd veto those acts or renewals or extensions of them, and I'd direct the Justice Department not to avail themselves of their unconstitutional provisions and to fight them in court where necessary.
In the larger realm of privacy, it's already apparent to me that the good guys are going to triumph. Strong crypto, a robust movement to provide privacy solutions to ordinary people by the Free Software Movement and others, and ongoing resistance to invasions of privacy are winning the battle. It's just hard to see that right now, when there's so much blood on the floor.
As a politician, my job is to sign the surrender papers -- to get government to stop trying to ride roughshod over your rights. You're going to win either way. I'm just the candidate who recognizes that, who thinks it's a good thing, and who's ready to proclaim the ceasefire.
How do you enforce rights in an ownership society? (Score:5, Interesting) by zzyzx (15139)
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?
You seem to be referring to what we call "real property" -- land. There are all kinds of property. The Internet connection I'm using to post these answers is my property in the sense that I have purchased that part of the bundle of rights attached to it for the purpose of sending my answers over it.
Even in a libertarian society where all property is privately owned, there will be distinct incentives for its owners to allow, even encourage, free speech. It's not a matter of me owning an acre and telling you that you can't talk there.
If I want sell you a piece of pen and paper, will you buy it if I say "you can't write a political tract on it?"
Will you buy your Internet service from me if I prohibit you from pointing your web browser at Slashdot?
And if I do either of those things, do you think it unlikely that you'll be able to find someone else to sell you those things without those restrictions?
In a libertarian society, more people will own more things than ever before. But owning something doesn't reduce it to a static, unchanging quantity. Things are used -- they're traded on the market -- and the desire to profit from doing so is the best guarantor of all that property owners will encourage free speech. It's just good business.
PATRIOT act (Score:5, Interesting) by keiferb (267153)
What's your view on the Patriot act? What, if any, parts do you think need to be changed, and why?
The whole thing needs to be repealed.
The PATRIOT Act removes the "governor" from the engine -- it lifts needed restrictions on the use of government power. It makes law enforcement and the bureaucracy unaccountable for their actions.
In my view, the bounds set by the Constitution are entirely compatible with the powers that law enforcement legitimately needs. Letting government run outside those bounds doesn't enhance our security -- it just compromises our liberty.
Where are we headed? (Score:5, Interesting) by QuantumRiff (120817)
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?
David Nolan, the founder of the Libertarian Party, is fond of pointing out that history seems to run in cycles of 70 years or so. We rebelled against the British and set up our own nation. 70 years later, we fought the War Between the States. 70 years after that, the Depression and the New Deal. If Nolan is right, and I don't find any fault in his logic, we're about at the end of a natural societal cycle. Barriers are breaking down and new things are coming.
To put it bluntly, I don't think that sticking with "our current leadership" is an option. Look at the questions you're asking me. Do we ditch the electoral college? How do we handle intellectual property? What about globalization? How do we reform our method of choosing those who govern? Those are questions that reflect a society in the throes of change.
As my friend L. Neil Smith puts it, "a great explosion is coming." As a matter of fact, we're right in the middle of it and it's hard to see what shape things are going to take when the smoke clears.
I see the next decade or so as a time of change, whether we like it or not. If Americans try to stick to the old way of doing things, the dislocation will last longer, be more disruptive and possibly tip us over into totalitarianism or some other nightmarish societal paradigm. If they adopt the libertarian way of doing things, it will be shorter, not as disruptive -- and usher in a better era to follow.
The broadest step I've taken is to run for the presidency. With the support of my party, I'm offering Americans a chance to peacefully transition back to policies that served America well for more than a century -- free trade, a non-interventionist foreign policy, minimal government, minimal taxes, maximum freedom -- rationalized into the paradigm of the 21st century.
If I'm elected, I'll do my utmost to implement those policies.
If the current leadership continues in power, they'll continue their efforts to snuff out what remains of American freedom in the name of national security, health security, job security, social security. They're offering you the security state. I'm offering you freedom.
War on Iraq and other dictatorships (Score:5, Interesting) by philipdl71 (160261)
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?
If Iraq had posed a clear and present danger to the United States, and if Congress had declared war and thus empowered the president to act in the nation's defense, that would be one thing, although some of the corollaries to that action might still be problematic.
But Iraq didn't pose a clear and present danger to the United States. It didn't pose a danger to the United States at all. And the US has not, in fact, "liberated" the people of Iraq. They still have a dictator. For awhile, his name was Bremer. Now it's Allawi. And the US has the innocent blood of thousands of Iraqis and more than 1,000 of its own young men and women on its hands.
If you or I want to unseat or kill a thug like Saddam Hussein, we're morally free to do so. He's a tyrant and a murderer. We'd only be acting on behalf of his victims.
Once we bring other people unwillingly into the equation, it gets more complex. We don't have a right to kill the innocent. We don't have a right to pick our neighbors' pockets to finance the project. We don't have a right to conscript their children into our army, as some in Congress are now advocating.
As an aspiring president, my interests have to be the interests of the United States. As a Libertarian, my priority has to be pursuing those interests in a manner consistent with freedom and without initiating force -- against anyone.
One of the questions above mentions pragmatism, and this is an issue where it comes into play. From both a pragmatic and principled perspective, the best foreign policy is one of non-intervention: Refusing to interfere in the internal affairs of, or intervene in the disputes of, other nations. From a pragmatic perspective, it's the best approach for the security of the United States. From a principled perspective, it avoids violating the rights of others.
That doesn't mean that I have to like Saddam Hussein. It just means that the legitimate interests of the United states are not served, nor are the legitimate rights of Americans and Iraqis respected, by invading and occupying Iraq.
Nuclear proliferation (Score:5, Interesting) by SiliconEntity (448450)
What would you do about the spread of nuclear weapons and other WMDs? Iran is now working on the bomb while Europe wrings its hands. North Korea has the bomb. What is the Libertarian position? Would you ever support attacking Iran to prevent them from going nuclear?
I think the nuclear issue is somewhat overblown -- no pun intended.
The nuclear cat is out of the bag. That's the way it is. The world is therefore a more dangerous place, but let's not lose our heads.
If you look at history, only one country has ever used atomic or nuclear weapons in war. That country is the United States.
The Soviet Union had nuclear weapons and considered itself the arch-enemy of the US. Yet they never unleashed nuclear weapons on us. Ditto for China.
Pakistan and India have a history of 50 years of conflict. They're both nuclear powers. Yet they haven't used those arms. Israel has nuclear weapons, is surrounded by enemies and has had to fight for its very survival, yet has not used them.
The fact is that becoming a nuclear power entails a certain "growing up" on the part of nations. They suddenly realize that the stakes aren't a transient gain or a temporary loss, but the destruction of their entire nation. And so they keep those weapons as a deterrent and those weapons are never actually used.
I don't see any reason to believe that North Korea or Iran will be exceptions. They'll rattle their nuclear sabres to enhance their influence in their respective regions. They'll hold them up as a deterrent to attack by their enemies. But they won't just start popping nukes because they have them.
The real proliferation problem is the possibility that terrorists will acquire nuclear weapons. And the best solution, although not a perfect one, to that is to not give marginal nuclear powers reason to fear us and to want to support those terrorists.
The Environment (Score:5, Interesting) by Sotogonesu (705553)
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?
Actually, there's a section on my web site which specifically addresses environmental concerns:
http://www.badnarik.org/Why/Environmentalists.php
I also have a new position paper on these issues. It just hadn't made it up on the campaign site yet when you asked the question. Here's a URL for it at the League of Women Voters' site:
http://www.congress.org/congressorg/e4/dnets/?sid=103952&id=119699
The short answer to your question is that I'd work to get the government out of the business of polluting, selling "rights" to pollute and protecting polluters from suits for damage. I'd also work to get wilderness lands into the hands of private groups who want to preserve them.
Privatizing Education (Score:5, Interesting) by EvilJello203 (749510)
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?
I don't think that a transition from government schooling to market schooling would be particularly disruptive in that respect. "Public" education has been such an unmitigated disaster that most children would almost immediately be well ahead of where they had been when the transition took place.
Ever since the inception of government schooling in the 19th century under Horace Mann, the US has been on a downward trend in literacy, numeracy and science learning. Sometimes that trend is briefly halted, but it always continues. To the extent that there might be some mild upheaval, it seems to me that the more quickly we exit the downward spiral, the shorter the climb back up will be.
What's your position on outsourcing/immigration? (Score:5, Interesting)
by Whatsmynickname (557867)
What's your position on illegal immigration and/or outsourcing? I would think a libertarian would say "keep the gov't out of it". However, at some point, doesn't having too much of either outsourcing or illegal immigration ultimately impact our national socio-economic stability?
We have two -- actually three -- separate issues here. I'll handle outsourcing first.
Capital migrates to where it is most profitably invested. That's just a fact of the market. If I can get a 10% return in Country A and a 25% return in Country B, you know where I'll be investing.
We can deal with that reality, or we can fight it. If we fight it, we'll lose. The future is not in trying to restrict trade or outlaw outsourcing -- it's in allowing innovation and competition, and in removing government impediments, like high taxes and expensive regulation, to keeping jobs here.
When a particular job or skill _does_ move offshore, all other things being equal, it merely frees Americans -- the most productive workers in the world -- to develop the NEXT job or skill or to come up with a more efficient, profitable way of providing the old one. And those innovations are make us the wealthiest country in the world. Instead of wondering where our jobs sewing soles on shoes went, we should be looking to what we can do that the sewing machine operator in Korea CAN'T do yet.
People also migrate to where they can make the most for their labor. Once again, that's just a fact of the market. One can hardly expect a Mexican agricultural laborer to work for $2.00 a day in Guadalajara when he can make $8.00 an hour in the San Joaquin Valley.
And, once again, we can deal with that reality or we can fight it -- and if we fight it, we'll lose.
Legal immigration is a net economic benefit to our country. The fact that workers come here to pick our crops, work in our poultry plants, -- even take coding jobs at computer firms -- lowers the cost of the goods and services we buy, and frees us up to pursue ever more profitable opportunities. That may be cold comfort to a particular worker who's just been sent home while an Indian on an H-2 visa sits down at his old workstation, but it's a fact. If that worker hadn't come to the job, the job would have gone to him via outsourcing -- or it would have gone undone because the profit margin was unattractive by comparison to other investments in labor.
I advocate lifting all restrictions on peaceful immigration. Immigration is not something we can stop. We might as well get the benefit of it instead of tying ourselves into knots fighting it.
This brings up the third issue: Borders. Some people believe that lifting immigration restrictions implies "open borders." That's like saying that an invitation to my house means it's okay for you to crawl through my bedroom window at four in the morning.
Immigrants should be welcome to come here -- as long as they're willing to come in through the front door. They should enter the US through a Customs and Immigration checkpoint, identify themselves, and let us verify that they aren't terrorists or criminals.
People who come across our borders at remote locations under cover of darkness, when they were free to enter through the front door, aren't immigrants. They're invaders. Illegal immigration creates an industry of "coyotes" to guide people across, and it provides cover for the non-peaceful -- terrorists and criminals -- to enter the country.
The border is a national security feature. I propose to treat it as such. In tandem with lifting immigration restrictions, I'd free our military to defend the border against invaders. And those invaders would no longer have a place to hide among real immigrants, or an underlying infrastructure of support for getting them across, because the peaceful immigrants would be entering legitimately.
Thanks for the chance to respond to Slashdot's members. It's been a pleasure!
Michael Badnarik debates David Cobb (the Green Party presidential candidate) on C-SPAN
I support all his views (I don't) or would vote for him (still thinking about where my vote is best placed), there is definitely some well thought out answers to these questions. Is it just me or does he sound better than either Bush or Kerry? Though I suppose he has to, being the underdog means being the one that needs the louder voice to be heard...
...in bed
Definition of a Democrat
Walking along a beach he sees a man drowning 20 yards off shore. A democrat will throw a 20 yard line to the man and walk away to do another good deed.
Definition of a Republican
Walking along the same shore, throws the man a 10 yard rope and holds the end. Expects the man to after all save himself!
Definition of a Libiterian
Same shore. No rope. Dives in to help.
drowns both of them.
He is the best sailor who can steer within fewest points of the wind, and exact a motive power out of the greatest obsta
Interesting chap, I'll give him that.
You want to know who isn't running Firefox 2.x? They spell it "definately" and "rediculous".
Because those groups would pay so much more than those would would drill for oil, or dump garbage, or build massive hotels, etc.
Thanks for the laugh!
I fully support Badnarik, and I even placed a banner(even though I hate flash) on my site supporting him. The best thing we can do is promote something other than the 2 party system and Mr. Badnarik is what America needs.
He wants to government out of our lives as much as possible and that is what we need. Our nation was started with a system of checks and balances, and the last 2 administrations(2 different parties) have stripped away many of the liberties we used to enjoy under the ruse of "protecting intellectual property"(dmca) and "terrorism"(patriot et al).
Please vote for him. We need the percentages to go up to convince people to vote outside of the 2 party system. He may not win this time but if he gets more and more and more, it may become a 3 party system.
Don't look at it as throwing away your vote, but rather as placing your vote with the person that you agree with. It's not a horse race; you don't have to bet on the winner, but rather choose who you would like to see in office the most and let the counts fall where they may.
</rant>
Chris
Unlike Kerry, and even unlike Bush-- Bush at least had a couple of years in a weak governorship-- Badnarik has no political experience whastoever, only two failed attempts at running for the Texas State House of Representatives.
This is the general problem with third party candidates. They tend to offer amenable political views, but no solid evidence of leadership, capability to serve in a political office, or past track record we can use to judge how they actually act when in political power.
But then again seeing as Badnarik won't concievably be winning this election, I guess how he'd actually do in office shouldn't factor into your decision whether or not to vote for him... right?
From this position paper on Industrial Hemp:
while the government contends that hemp can be useful as camouflage for marijuana growth, even laymen can easily distinguish between the two.
Are you going to provide the funds for the manpower required to manually search help fields? You can't exactly fly airplanes/helicopters over the area and expect to make easy identification without some on the ground work.
Raw hempseed oil can be used, without any modification, to power diesel engines.
Yeah, I have heard it can. It supposedly is a lot more efficient than canola/vegetable oil. First big problem I see is that not many respectable news outlets are promoting this fuel alternative. Google returns a page of hits that includes many sites showing off hemp leaves as their backgrounds.
As your President, I would open the way for free-market exploration and exploitation of industrial hemp. I'd veto legislation funding enforcement of laws against it, and I'd lobby Congress to repeal those laws.
We live in a time that supports conservative views and this would certainly not go over well. You won't get into the White House with this on your ticket and you certainly wouldn't win anything if you ever got there. As someone mentioned on a different thread: put a frog in boiling water and they will jump right out but put that same frog in cold water and slowly raise the temperature...
Honestly, if you want some advice... Tell me what you are going to fix and exactly how you are going to fix it. Do not gloss over important issues with a simple "I am going to do X for the American public!" It doesn't hold water anymore. We have heard enough bullshit fluff from the main parties. You aren't going to walk into the White House and successfully veto anti-Hemp legislation. Tell me how you are going to get Congress and the rest of the public to support your ideas.
Give me something to believe in other than the typical 10 word canned lines. You would get my vote if your plans were thorough and possible.
Definition of a Green Party member
Walking along a beach he sees a man drowning 20 yards off shore, so he immediately drops whatever he was doing to protest the ocean
that they're not on the ballot in NH. Wasn't that their proposed "free-state" that they were to (or are?) colinize?
I'm sure a lot of Republicans have more in common with Badnarik's "The market can and will solve all problems" approach than the the Bush administration's combination of big-spending on unnecessary conflicts, corporate welfare for drug companies, and violation of our individual liberties. I would encourage those of you who are Republicans to take a good look at Badnarik.
Arrow's Impossibility Theorem, says that runoff voting will necessarily be unfair in one of 5 different ways. However, just about any runoff voting scheme would be more fair than the Australian ballot, which by design keeps anyone from voting for a third party.
I guess that depends on the ideology ;-)
You have to like a Presidential candidate who uses a winkey smiley.
-Colin
It has been this way forever. We have two parties, and they don't want any competition. My feeling is anyone who can get X signatures on a petition should be put on a ballot. In some ways, getting on a ballot should be just as important a right as the right to vote, otherwise we are like China when they have free elections, but only one candidate.
Having said that, I would never vote for a libertarian. They fail to see one aspect of humanity. Power corrupts. There is greed. If left unchecked, the powerful will enslave the rest of us. It is human nature. For example, around the time of the revolution 1% of the USA population owned 10% of all wealth, today that 1% owns over 40% of all wealth. There is something wrong when wealth can be concentrated into so few people, that the rest of the USA is left with less. Someone mentioned earlier that the previous generation could survive with one income. Today many families need two incomes to make ends meet.
Come and say hi. http://forum.penpals.com/index.php
I'd also work to get wilderness lands into the hands of private groups who want to preserve them.
That sounds like government intervention. Who decides which private group really wants to preserve a wilderness? What if they are just lying about wanting to preserve it? What if the private group that does not want to preserve it offers the most money for it?
Looks like really preseving a wilderness area would require government intervention and regulation. Which goes against this party's policies.
See the Political Compass for a visual representation of where Michael Badnarik actually stands. Their quiz will also place you visually, and from reading their FAQ it really sounds like they have an appreciation for statistics, be that what it may.
Also found in the FAQ is an interesting tidbit about Americans and our seemingly skewed idea of just what a libertarian is (they are Brits):
You can't be libertarian and left wing
This is almost exclusively an American response, overlooking the undoubtedly libertarian tradition of European anarcho-syndicalism. It was, after all, the important French anarchist thinker Proudhon who declared that property is theft.
On the other side of the Atlantic, the likes of Emma Goldman were identified as libertarians long before the term was adopted by some economic rightwingers. And what about the libertarian collectives of the mid-late 1800s and 1960s?
Americans like Noam Chomsky can claim the label 'libertarian socialist' with the same validity that Milton Friedman can be considered a 'libertarian capitalist'.
The assumption that Social Darwinism delivers more social freedom is questionable. The welfare states of, for example, Sweden and The Netherlands, abolished capital punishment decades ago and are at the forefront of progressive legislation for women, gays and ethnic minorities - not to mention anti-censorship. Such established social democracies consistently score highest in the widely respected Freedom House annual survey on civil liberties. Their detailed checklist can be viewed at http://www.worldaudit.org/civillibs.htm . Similar social developments would presumably be envied by genuine libertarians in socially conservative countries - even if their taxes are lower.
Interestingly, many economic libertarians express to us their support for or indifference towards capital punishment; yet the execution of certain citizens is a far stronger assertion of state power than taxation.
N.B. The death penalty is practised in all seriously authoritarian states. In Eastern Europe it was abolished with the fall of communism and adoption of democracy. The United States is the only western democracy where capital punishment is still practised.
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
What a horrendous idea. It's not enough that a shareholder lose their investment. They have to lose their house as well.
Although this might improve accountability, this would drive the small investor right out of the stock market.
Adding to the problem is the arbitrariness of law suit damages that are now being awarded. They often have no relation to the actual damage done. There is no way an investor can accurately assess the risk.
One thing that constrains law suits is that you can't get a billion dollars out of a million dollar company. Removing limited liability, so that the lawyers can sue the shareholders, would make the Oklahoma land rush look like a trickle.
Since your name is Badnarik, I'm assuming you're not George W. Bush. Is that correct?
Yes? Ok. You've got my vote.
I don't know much about Libertarians, but what exactly do they suggest we do after we pull our troops back home out of half-ass-baked countries?
Build really tall walls along the borders?
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
I was planning to vote for Kerry or Alfred E Neuman (whats the difference?). I want Kerry to win over Bush but being in MD, its pretty likely that Kerry will murder him here so I may as well vote my conscience.
I was not too sure about you since I had not seen any Ads and have not been very active in watching the LP as opposed to last election when I voted for Spear Lancaster for governor.
Your views on the unnecesary protection afforded to corporations is a 100% match for my view on the matter. In fact your words were almost precisley the same that I wrote in an essay recently arguing that corporations are by nature unnaccountable sociopaths.
I will be voting Badnarik for President.
I think that Mr. Badnarik's agenda is not correct for this (or any) country.
Certainly there needs to be some sort of structure implemented by the people to govern themselves. While I do believe that both the Democrats and Republicans are (for the most part) greedy, corrupt and power-hungry, I don't think that a radical Libertarian agenda is correct. What we need is enlightened leadership, which acts in the interest of the people.
Let's face it; our society has many, many problems, not only with education, but with outsourcing, distribution of wealth, government invasions of privacy . . . anyone could go on for hours. The simple fact is that this country needs leadership which is interested in working hard to solve those problems.
The Democrats won't do it, neither will the Republicans, but I'd rather see a slightly stronger government that imposes some regulation and control over corporations, rather than a government that is so powerless that it cannot act in the public interest (which is what I believe would be the case under a Libertarian leadership.)
In the end, it's all about balance.
I have only ONE beef with the libertarian party (not going to mention it here), however, this guy's well thought our responses are a clear indication of WHY he will not be invited to the debates. George Kerry, and John Bush wouldn't have a clue how to respond to thoughtful answers.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
One of the questions above mentions pragmatism, and this is an issue where it comes into play. From both a pragmatic and principled perspective, the best foreign policy is one of non-intervention: Refusing to interfere in the internal affairs of, or intervene in the disputes of, other nations. From a pragmatic perspective, it's the best approach for the security of the United States. From a principled perspective, it avoids violating the rights of others.
There is definitely something to be said for this approach.
Unfortunately, it allows things like the genocide going on in Sudan right this minute to continue.
This is the NFL, which stands for "Not For Long" if you keep making those bulls*** calls.
... But first, teach him that to start with a fish smaller than a great white shark.
... he'll still have to get his proposals through Congress.
I could buy into a lot of what the Libertarian Party has to say. I realize that a lot of it only borderline practical for the real world, but I *could* buy into it to see what it's realization would look like.
Unfortunately, the Libertarian Party (and other third parties) consistently go about their goals the wrong way. If America truly is ripe for change, then the Libertarian Party should be working from the ground up. Start with the local/state governments. The worse consequence of Ross Perot and Jesse Ventura's quasi-success is that the Libertarian Party still hasn't figured out that once it controls mayors, county councils, and governors, it'll always be a fringe movement.
I mean, let's say we do end with a Libertarian President in 2004, somehow
Were actually invited to the Cobb-Badnarik debate linked in the grandparent post, but for some reason declined to come.
Mail? Put "slashdot" in the subject to pass the spam filters.
For your restatements of Badnarik's positions to make sense, it would have to be true that:
1. The war in Iraq is a war against terrorism.
2. Gun rights equal no gun restrictions.
3. The PATRIOT Act is actually needed to fight terrorists.
None of those three points are straight true/false. Each one is open to argument.
They need to skip the national elections and work from local elections up. A top down approach doesn't work (a la trickle down). They need some more state representatives, govenorships and congresscritters first. President is a stretch.
Running a presidential candidate gives visibility to the party, helping all those local and state candidates win their races. More libertarians hold public office than all other 3rd parties combined. No one honestly expects Badnarik to win the presidential election, but the fact that the LP is running candidates on all levels helps the lower levels succeed.
Who's being naïve here? Do you really think those companies are more afraid of the FDA than they are of ruinous lawsuits? The FDA is a captive agency, it shields them from liability and leaves them far less afraid to screw up and kill people. On top of that, take away the ridiculous immunities vested in corporations qua corporations, as Badnarik discusses above, and you're talking about a situation where the consequences would be far more deterrence than anything the FDA could ever provide.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
I think this is the general problem with politics today. We seem to think its the norm to have a career politician. I think the founding fathers would have intended a baker, a butcher, a sailor, and a bank owner to all be equally feasible politicians. These individuals don't like something so they say their ideas and if people like what they say the office selects the person. The way we have it now, the politician(which is a valid "career") looks around for offices that he/she is likely to win and they go for it.
Example: In the old days Americans,"founding fathers" decided that George Washington would be a good president. Washinton wasn't really interested in the position but support for him to become president was just so overwhelming that he was forced to take office. This is how we find a good president someone who gets the position not because they dog it relentlessly in order to gain power and influence but a person who solemnly accepts it because Americans demand that this person have the job.
This notion that experience matters is utter crap what we are doing is just facilitating the current power structure and making it harder and harder to affect meaningful change. If you want someone to continue giving us the status quo with no innovation and no passion for the position continue to select someone with "experience" I however will not.
Of course, the "major" parties don't approve of anything that might threaten to break their shared monopoly on power. That's why they've instituted the Australian ballot and draconian ballot access laws.
Not entirely. The Australian ballot is important in order to have a secret ballot. In the age of party-printed ballots (where you would put the party's ballot into the box), you could be observed putting a ballot that was clearly belonging to one party or another into the box.
If you want a secret ballot, then they can't be distinguishable. This does present a problem of ballot access (since now we have the government printing the ballots, and therefore, determining who will be on it when it comes time to print them), but I think that this can be rectified without compromising secrecy. For example, we could merely have a deadline, which was the last possible date to go to press and print enough ballots, and let anyone on who who was eligible, if they filed prior to the deadline (probably in October). And permit write ins for anyone that missed the deadline.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Is there any plan in the works for interviews with other 3rd party or major Candidates?
Mikey
I've always been the kinda guy to fall for the girl dressed like an eskimo.
Convince me, then. Why should I trust the same government that has conducted secret syphilis and radiation studies to watch over the food I eat?
A hard-core libertarian might call you naive for apparently believing that government is more trustable than private industry. Instead, let's all grow up and acknowledge that things are complicated and that people (gasp!) can have different views without needing at least one of them to be stupid.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
My plan for Iraq is a 90-day phased withdrawal concentrating on the physical security of the troops.
Didn't the US get skewered for doing this after the first gulf war? And in Afganistan? Which is what lead to the rise of the Taliban. Which led to 9/11. How is this not repeating bad decisions which, as we can see from history, will lead to bad consequences?
I flirted with libertarianism when I was in college, but soon realized the fundamental problem with it: all success is predicated on people behaving a certain way, a way which 10,000 years of human experience shows is antithetical to human nature. (This by the way, is true of many ideologies - communism, facsim, etc.) As an example, the libertarian view on pollution (in a nutshell) is that government should not be involved. The marketplace will triumph because people collectively will boycott companies that pollute, and individually sue companies that pollute their specific air or land. But how does word get out that a specific company is polluting? Easy enough to make sure newspapers and television that do this kind of investigative reporting don't get ad dollars - under libertarianism there would be nothing to prevent corporations generating a blacklist of media outlets to kill. And if a multibillion dollar corporation says, "hey, my twenty highly paid scientific experts say that pollution didn't come from my drainpipe", how does a $30K/year individual marshall a lawsuit against them? Especially if it is legal for the corporation to call in favors from other corporations and have that individual fired, their mortgage forclosed, their health insurance dropped, and their kids kicked out of school. Public approbation? How does the individual talk to "The Public"? If a few people do get wind of it, the polluters will run some happiness-and-fluff commercials about how they really care about the environment and are working hard every day to protect it, and any tiny disturbance in their bottom line will be reversed (anyone else remember those bizarre 1970's era commercials that showed a thoughtful, intelligent Mom making sure her kids got only the nutritionally best snacks: Hostess Twinkies"?)
Bottom line of the libertarians: "Well, if people aren't willing to fight for something, then the market has decided, and they have to accept the consequences." The problem with that is the little guy did figure out a way to fight the big corporations without having to spend all day every day monitoring and coordinating. A strong representational government. But the first thing the libertarians want to see killed is that government.
I don't know. He seemed to avoid the issues presnted to him in a couple of places.
This question:
How do you enforce rights in an ownership society? (Score:5, Interesting) by zzyzx
Was right to the heart of things and well placed as just a few questions ahead Badnarik had just spoken rather ambiguously about his position on copyright.
Badnarik went from saying it was too early to say what was right in the copyright game to switching around and talking about how important intellectual property was comparing it to the importance of real property as though the latter was a minor point in comparison. Then, to top it off, instead of addressing this glaring issue about how a Libertarian government would protect free speech, he trails off talking about how the market will take care of it. Huh?
Then a few questions later he says that literacy in the US has declined dramatically since the nineteenth century. Wow. I wonder where he got that statistic. Whodda thunk?
Unless you live in a battleground state, there's no reason NOT to vote for Badnarik (assuming that you support him).
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
You're more than welcome to stick to your own narrow and ignorant interpretation of Badnarik's words as reason to not vote for him. You might learn something, though, if you abandoned your prejudices and took the time to try understanding him.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Unfortunately, what the LP (of which I am a member) seems to gloss over, is that the Constitution mandates certain restrictions on trade. Specifically, Copyright and Patents and government issued and backed monopolies on certain goods, methods and properties.
Also, it is quite difficult for "free trade" unless ALL parties participate. We can't have free trade with the likes of China, because of massive subsidation. Not to mention other, less developed markets would not be able to trade "freely" with us because until those markets develop (with gov't subsidation) they would be crushed out of existence.
"Free" isn't going to be "fair", though there is no law in nature about "fair". The bigger guy almost always wins.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
I agree it's not a horse race. The top 2 are both jackasses!
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
What you're doing here is the standard pseudo-intellectual put-down, and what it shows it that you're too lazy to consider a proposal that doesn't fit your world-view.
Ever heard of Underwriter's Laboratories? It's a consortium of companies who have something to lose if accidents happen: the insurance companies.
Ever heard of Consumer Reports? Not a government agency, but a private organization which offers scrupulously independent analysis of consumer products.
When I want assurance of the quality of medicines, I'd much rather see that guarantee coming from the drug company's insurance carrier (who must pay out many millions if the drug is bad), than some bureacrat who is shielded from being sued for incompetence.
Oh, and for future reference: When you start your rebuttal with an ad-hominem like "grow up", you're the one who's being childish. Snotty, even.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
The FDA is responsible for a vast number of deaths. Consider - their approval process adds an average of 7 years to the development time for a drug. How many people will die in 7 years?
But of course approving a dangerous drug is bad too. Since drug effects are highly variable in different people and difficult to measure, there is really no good way to objectively decide what is "safe". The only sane solution is to give doctors and patients as much information as possible and let them make their own choices.
If the illusion of FDA protection is removed, people (especially doctors) would suddenly care a lot more about the reputation of a given drug manufacturer, and one that tried to push a dangerous drug would be doomed, because everyone would be afraid to touch their stuff forever after.
"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern." - Lord Acton
Except that you can't tell these two horses apart. The only point in voting for Kerry that I can see is that it might have some small chance of deadlocking the government and preventing it from doing any more harm to my civil liberties over the next four years.
Bush is just as bad as Kerry, but since he's playing for the same team as the majority of Congress it's much less likely that the deadlock will occur, and that atrocities like the INDUCE act will pass.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
That while Liberal Democrats fetishize the 60's with their free speech, protests, and somewhat successful battles for feminism and civil rights issues ...
and while Republicans fetishize the 50's with their tight nuclear families, single income households, burgeoning economy, and repressed wives ...
that Libertarians fetishize the Wild West where everyone is armed, the main currency is gold, and we shoot unwelcome Mexicans on sight?
Industrial Hemp and marijuana are different plants. You tell whether industrial hemp growers are growing marijuana in the same way you tell whether any other piece of farmland in the U.S. is growing marijuana.
Its much more complicated than that.
1st hemp legislation is blocked by established companies, mainly paper companies. Companies don't like any rock to their status quo. Just like the zinc industry pitches a bitch every time the thought of doing away with the worthless penny comes up. (Prior to that 1982, pennies were 95% Copper and 5% zinc.. After 1982 the composition became 97.6% zinc and 2.4% copper. Yet the zinc people act as if zinc was always in pennies).
Also, one of the reasons hemp is pushed so hard, is because stoners push it. "Normal" people could care less. Hemp and marijuana being illegal are both BS. Hemp is illegal to grow because its illegal to grow marijuana. The US used to be covered in hemp. When they 1st proposed making marijuana illegal, many people laughed saying it was as difficult as making oak or pine trees illegal, but somehow it got passed and all of the hemp was killed off. Hemp products are legal in the US, you just can't grow them. And it would be _very_ difficult to tell the difference between a hemp field and a marijuana field. And if hemp were legal and marijuana illegal, people would plant hemp all over the place for camoflage for growing marijuana, because hemp will grow wild anywhere with no maintenance or care needed.
We need to keep pushing the hemp issue... Vote libertarian (or at least vote).
Well, once we've pulled our forces out of the over 150 countries they're stationed in now, we get two big security benefits:
1. Lots of people freed up to guard borders, infrastructure, ports, etc, from the existing terrorists of the world. It is called the Department of *Defense*, after all.
2. The elimination of all the free recruiting propaganda we generate for the terrorists by messing around in their countries.
"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern." - Lord Acton
I may be missing the point here, but if corporations are no longer considered "persons" in the legal sense then they can be held accountable for their actions. So if someone creates a drug that kills someone, they could be held accountable for that death. That might be a bigger deterent that the current system. Now: Make bad drug, pay lawsuit/higher insurance premiums Proposed: Make bad drug, sleep next to bubba for 10-20years.
Nice black-or-white argument you've got going here. Government good, corporations evil, and the simplistic paradigm you've constructed is the only one that will ever exist.
Here's a newflash: government is often evil. Government regularly sucks the cock of corporations. Even when government does good deeds, it often does so in a ruinously inefficient manner.
In a libertarian state you'd have lawsuits where investors and board directors can't hide behind laws exempting them from liability, *enforced by the very government that's supposed to be protecting YOU*. In a libertarian state non-profits and citizen groups wouldn't be hamstrung by a government constantly trying to muzzle them with rules, regulations, and laws designed to make information retrieval and private monitoring of corporate entities damned near impossible.
In a libertarian state investors and board members could find all of their property seized for deliberately releasing a drug with deadly side-effects to the public in pursuit of short-term profit. In a truly libertarian state the people who knew about these side effects and did nothing to sound the alarm would go on trial for murder.
Your ignorance would be astounding if it weren't so common.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
When a particular job or skill _does_ move offshore, all other things being equal, it merely frees Americans -- the most productive workers in the world -- to develop the NEXT job or skill or to come up with a more efficient, profitable way of providing the old one.
n ko rder/2004rank.html
_ cap&in t=-1
u _sch_lif_ex p_tot
The myth that American workers are the most productive (Per Capita GDP) persists...
Actually Luxembourg has the highest PCGDP, nearly 1.5 times the US PCGDP...
The US is nearly identical to Norway, a Social Democracy with universal heatlhcare...
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ra
Cool graph at this one:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/eco_gdp
This one's good too, Most Educated:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/ed
US comes in at 14...We should be ashamed...
Goofy, Geeky Gifts and More!
Because, you know, there's no way that a private consumer organization could ever replace government, or provide more value.
Thanks for demonstrating the benefits of public education there. While the government may keep people from "dieing", it has a very bad track record in education.
One could even present the argument that a group of competing private testing companies would provide more value and safety than one centralized body that isn't accountable for the costs when they screw up.
As far as the FDA's real track record, look up the histories of things like Saccharin, Cyclamates...
Look at some of the new science being done about DDT
Two examples: My fiancee worked hospice care for mentally disabled adults. One of them was a guy who got blindsided by an SUV while he was on his motorcycle. He went from being a well-paid metal worker to a grown man with the mental skills of a two-year old. Would the burden of his care be placed on his family, or the family of the person who hit him? Neither of them could support his care.
My future brother-in-law has muscular dystrophy, and has gone from walking around and caring for himself to a wheelchair and complete dependence on others in six months. He gets some help from MDA, but without government assistance my future mother-in-law could not afford treatments for him that could extend his life so he could be cured in the future. Does he deserve to die because he was born with a congenital disease? And I don't trust that a donations-funded organization could provide for him. What happens when they have a bad year? Would his medication be cut? Would his therapy and school aid be dropped because they can't afford it?
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
On everything other than the offshore outsourcing and open borders, I like what he had to say. I'll still be forming a third party in 2008 though- because automation, immigration, and offshoring will need to be addressed, and in a way that doesn't use the free market system- because we're well on the road to having anywhere between 25% and 75% of our workers kicked out of that system entirely, not because somebody in Korea can do the job cheaper, but because robots can do the job even cheaper yet. And if we don't want a violent revolution, we're going to have to do something with those people. What exactly, is the question, and the reason I'm going with a hack of marxism as opposed to libertarianism.
I'm also a Get Bush Out Voter- but I'd encourage all slashdotters whose states are polling at more than an 8% difference between the candidates to vote Libertarian NOW!
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
And in 2008, they'll say, "Vote [third party] in 2012. Get [Bush/Kerry] out now, but vote [third party] in 2012."
There's no time like the present.
We can, it's called voting.
Thank you, yes!
It continually steams me that a person who has never held a regular job (such as Clinton), would be considered the person who best serves the needs of all those people out there with regular jobs.
Yes, political experience is good, but a politician with no other experience is NOT to be trusted. I will add that politicians whose only "regular" job has been as a trial attorney or some such is almost as suspect, because they deal in the same currency as politicians.
When the experience of the incumbents is simply a lifetime of learning how to trade more and more of our rights for power, then I agree that experience is crap.
Libertarians want to replace all regulatory agencies with the judicial system. We already have an overly litigious society, imagine what happens when every problem is resolved in the courtroom. Maybe trial lawyers should stop supporting Democrats and start pushing the Libertarian party ...
.. the consequences to the rest of us be damned. Given the vagaries of our law system, you can't rely on the fact that the cost of a lawsuit will be equal to the economic damages associated with a corporation's particular action.
Every regulatory agency has major problems, many of them coming because of nasty directives passed from the legislative and executive branches, but by and large they benefit both companies and consumers (yes, it is possible to benefit both). By forcing companies to behave within certain guidelines it no longer means that you compete by cutting any and all costs. Remember, before the FDA, snake oil salesman was a lucrative form of business (I guess one could argue it still is...). It also benefits consumers because who wants to win 5 million dollars at the cost of their youngest daughter's life!
What insight do Libertarian's provide as to how they will balance the poor and middle classes' ability to protect themselves from a corporation's action? If you don't already have money in a libertarian society, you are even more of a second class citizen then you are in our current society.
You can't expect corporations to behave as anything less than profit-maximizing firms. If they know that it will cost them 2 billion dollars in lawyer's fees and settlements to make 10 billion dollars over the cost of production, then they will do so
I'm not in any way trying to demonize corporations. They behave exactly as they should, as profit maximizing entities. It is our job as consumers and voters to make sure that the profit maximization is only a result of meeting our needs.
This is not just an offhand remark you've made, but a specific blind spot of the L Party. Where an easy answer doesn't work, they get stuck. And foreign policy is one place where there's often no easy answer.
Free trade amongst nations makes everyone richer, I'm sure Badnarik would agree. But a global economy requires global security; for example, the US protects the straits between Indonesia and Malaysia from terrorists and/or pirates who would otherwise mess with oil shipments there. I'm sure this is really good for the economy of all the nations that depend on that oil, and it's something the US military can do with its eyes closed. (For training an exercise in real-world non-drills that make the US Navy stronger!) With the first result that a few Asian economies are dependent on the interests of the US.
Maybe those countries would buy the services for security. Maybe they do buy them in other ways I don't know about. I'm not an expert but I do know, there are many places where the US couldn't just walk away without massive and serious repercussions.
The Badnarik deus-ex-machina is that he knows he is unelectable, and can admit so freely, and thus doesn't have to really think hard about such matters. Hey, I don't really have to do any of those things because I didn't really get elected. Well guess what, that's just not good enough. If you're gonna play with the big boys, you better not start by advocating policies that could cause global depression. I know they aren't Americans but some of them do buy stuff from us, and it's actually cheaper to fill those outgoing container shipments with *something*.
> okay, it's not the same thing as having one in the White House, but
> it's a place to start.
More importantly, it is the proper place to start. Like the guy said, just getting elected would indicate the sort of groundswell of revolution that would indicate it was time to make the radical changes he advocates, Which won't happen until we have a People fit to govern themselves as their forefathers once did.
You lead by example. The average person no longer knows what it means to be Free and frankly, the idea scares them. We need Libertarians who have the "people skills" for it to get out and run for local offices, then start making a difference. Those of us who lack the skills to be a successfull pol can provide support. This will show the more mainstream voters that:
1. Libertarians aren't just drug legalizing notcases. This factor should not be underestimated. Those tend to be the loudest voices and the mainstream press makes sure they are the ones the average voter sees.
2. Libertarian policies can actually be implemented in the real world. (Although truthfully, a lot of what passes for "libertarian" thought won't actually work, but weeding that stuff out is a lot less painful in a county government setting than a governor or national office going off into la-la land.)
3. It builds a bench to recruit candidates for higher office from. Where do you thing the Dems and Repubs get most of their candidates? Yup, by watching for new young talent to emerge down in the lower offices.
4. That chaotic Libertarians can actually form a Party. This is important. Regardless of how effective one politician is, it means nothing without a party. See Ross Perot and the Reform Party. Once Ross tired of playing the Reform Party disintegrated because it wasn't a real party, just a cult of personality that couldn't agree on anything, because the only belief they shared was a blind faith in Ross Perot.
Democrat delenda est
"Better, it seems to me, would be for third parties to concentrate entirely on below-the-radar races (city council, etc.) and then move up one step at a time."
Yep. It might take 16 to 32 years, but if they can show how their policies have been BENEFICIAL to the cities / counties / states then they'd move up to the next level of government.
But they have to SHOW that their policies can be enacted at the lower levels WITHOUT destroying civilization as we know it. And if they can't do that, then its obvious that they should NOT be president.
I see big talk about big changes, but are there any smaller changes that they can implement at the city/county levels?
I used to have two quibbles, but Badnarik neatly resolved one of them. I used to worry about the Libertarians giving too much power to the mega-corp types, but his answer -- "let's make them compete on a level legal playing field and let the courts, rather than regulation, keep them in line" -- seems like it could work if the government kept a tight watch on it during the transition.
However, I have to question the Libs' attitude toward drug legalization.
I support the decriminalization of marijuana, on the grounds that someone can smoke pot in their home and I'd never know, let alone be impacted negatively. However, harder drugs (thinking mainly of heroin and crack here) can impact me.
How?
Well, I think it is part of the government's duty (or society's duty) to assure a certain minimum standard of living for everyone. We cannot in good conscience allow people to starve in the streets, or die of diseases that could be treated easily.
Fortunately, nearly everyone of sound body and mind can provide for themselves that standard of living. Unfortunately, because society/government has this duty to itself, and because heroin and crack addicts often cannot provide that for themselves, junkies cost the public coffers (or philanthropists, which is the same thing) money to feed their drug-addicted asses.
The libertarian ideal has everyone providing for themselves and no one relying on the government for support. Unfortunately, I fear that hard-drug legalization will give the government a hard choice: let addicts starve in the streets, or raise taxes to pay for them.
Of course, even if the drugs themselves are legal, encouraging others to use them (i.e. "pushing") should remain illegal, just as tobacco/alcohol advertising should be illegal: it consitutes encouraging another to harm himself. People have the right to shoot themselves in the foot all they want, but not to try to convince others that shooting themselves in the foot is good fun.
Makes me think of the Douglas Adma's So Long and Thanks for All the Fish ...
"The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did," said Ford, "it is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't the people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them. They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards."
"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard, then the wrong lizard might get in."
You sly dog: you got me monologuing! - Syndrome
I remember driving as a child through some areas of northern Orange County and looking at tree- and scrub-covered hills that are now blanketed with houses. There are large tracts of hilly land in Southern California that are subject to development that I would love to see purchased and set aside before they can be razed. I'd love to be the one to purchase them, too, just so that I could entertain developers for a bit, just to tell them that I have no intentions of selling their land just because they're running out of places to put expensive homes.
The funny thing is (to many people)... I lean to the right on a lot of things, often including the environment. I'm not sure if I'd like the conservation more because of the conservation itself or the red-faced developers blowing a gasket.
A couple of years ago, I heard actor Rick Schroeder in an interview on the radio. He had just bought a ranch off in Wyoming or Montana or somewhere like that, something huge with thousands of acres. He said that when he's home, he likes to go once a day to visit a new acre. How cool is that? He could do that for YEARS and still find something new on a regular basis. I would love to be able to do that.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
I'm curious to know how a Libertarian would deal with the fact that some ubiquitous resources are by definition public, i.e. the air and water.
If I own property where the air is being polluted by a nearby factory, isn't the factory owner infringing upon my property rights? How do Libertarians propose to deal with the fact that someone's actions (ostensibly on "their own" property, if the factory is own their own land) affects everyone else's air?
The same argument can be used about water. How do Libertarians propose to stop landowners from polluting or diverting rivers that go through "their own" property?
To address an issue closer to Slashdotters' hearts, what about the airwaves? How would Libertarians divide the electromagnetic spectrum for broadcast?
Some resources are not neatly divided like land. In the case of air and water, one's actions affect other people, even when those actions are taken, "on one's own property." Unless Libertarianism addresses this issue somehow, I see it as an essential contradiction of the ideology.
He is a conspiracy nut. His views on 9-11, the grassy-knoll, and others put him out in la-la land with the Roswell alien groupies.
That being said he did put forth some nearly perfect anwsers to the questions. Particularly the Electoral college issue and the problem with out sourcing. He nailed both issues squarely.
Great knowledge of what really works, without all the sugar coating (read - buy me votes) but probably too austere of a government especially in a land of people who want everything handed to them, the next big thing being free health care for everyone. (say good bye to quality then)
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I live in NC; I don't expect it to go to Kerry, but I'm still going to do my part. I've seen the margin between the two go below 5%, and I know enough not to trust polls, especially on election day.
I think all bets are off this time around; it'll likely be a close race, and with a surprising amount of people voting, especially given that it's a US election.
As for supporting Badnarik, he sounds more reasonable than some Libertarians out there. I give him credit both for supporting approval voting, and for not giving corporations a blank check. I'm not sure about privatizing education, partially for that reason.
However, I think there are some substantial differences between Bush and Kerry, and I don't think a third party candidate has a reasonable chance in this election. So I'm going to vote the way that my vote can potentially do the most good.
And if NC goes to Kerry, you might have me and people like me to thank--people who didn't give up because someone told them it wasn't supposed to be a "battleground state".
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
He didn't say "sell at fair market value," he said "get...into the hands of." Seems to me he's saying that he'd make them untouchable...unpurchasable by those large groups that would pay so much more for the land then go on to rape it of its natural resources with not a single reason to care for the destruction of the environment (habitat for animals, plants, ourselves) and the extinction of said living creatures. A seller can put restrictions on the use of any real estate, and the government can take away the land and give it to these groups for a song, contingent upon preservation. It's something that could happen, but then again, I'm not sure what the ramifications of effectively taking someone's corporately "owned" property and giving it to someone else would be.
Except for that fact that deregulation in California is a misnomer. There were actually more regulations in place regarding utilities buying and selling electricity than before the market was "deregulated". If deregulation causes these things, then why hasn't Pennsylvania, which has been deregulated since 2000, seen these problems?
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
I know Kerry won't have Cheney for his VP, and will have a different cabinet, justice dept., etc., and therefore I would expect that fully one third of the gov't would end up in saner hands. I think voting against Ashcroft (which the people already did once, mind you) will help prevent harm to your civil liberties.
Also unlike Bush, Kerry might actually use his veto power to prevent bad legislation from going into law. So that should help check the legislative branch. Finally, in the event that one or more Supreme Court justices retires in the next four years, it will be Kerry and not Bush who gets to pick the appointee. So I've covered all three branches!
Personally I think Bush is worse than Kerry, because Bush appears to trust his staff implicitly, and his staff is not to be trusted. Kerry, on the other hand, can make up his own mind about things. He can also change his mind, which is a strength when you'd otherwise be doing the wrong thing.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Badnarik's point (and mine) is that interventionism is bad policy for These United States. It's clearly not bad policy for individual Americans, or groups of Americans.
Interventionism in WWI brought us the devastation of the Versailles Treaty, which led directly to Adolph Hitler's rise to power. Interventionism led These United States directly into the quagmire of Viet Nam, and now Iraq.
Interventionism just isn't a good way to make international friends or influence people to not blow up our buildings with airliners.
The IPCC has purposely engineered a massive scientific fraud.
Many of us have thought that all along, that the only people fit for office are those smart enough to know they don't want the job in the first place. I tend to vote for the people who have real jobs and have to pay the bills. Why would we ever want someone who only does politics running the country? We talk about how screwed up the system is, then turn around and re-elect all the same people for another term. If we want change, we should probably start with those representing us and not their careers...
I for one welcome our new Phisopher-King-Electoral-College Member Overlords.
Slashdot: Where anecdotes and generalizations can be freely substituted for facts, logic, or intelligence
next...?
Your head a splode
The USA has a great history of doing just that... School of the Americas, Iran-Contra, Saddam Hussein, Efrain Rios Montt, Manuel Noriega, Augusto Pinochet, Gustavo Alvarez, Roberto D'Aubuisson, Samuel Doe, Apartheid South Africa, Osama Bin Laden. And many others.
Don't you find it at all problematic that our own pawns in one game become enemy kings in the next? Sooner or later we'll be at war with Allawi (or his successor) in Iraq. This is not a good strategy.How odd. We have troops all over the world, had bush at the helm for most of a year with plenty of warning and we were still attacked. Since then, We have had nearly 3 years in which we had the ability to capture bin ladin and stop al qaeda, yet we all but pulled out of where he was based at to go fight for other reasons. How do you propose that placing troops everywhere, causing more civil wars, invading other countries, and causing the enemies numbers to swell 10 fold is going to increase our security?
Since Democrats, Republicans, and even Putin's appoach does not seem to be working, perhaps Badnarik has it right.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Perhaps, but the idea of me owning the property also works on the premise of having enough money to pay for top-notch attorneys to fight those that would try to go around me.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Whoops. There goes your stupid argument.
No.
There is a third option. That people are too lazy or stupid to excercise the power to decide what they watch/read/listen to.
Do you remember this article? The whole point of this book was to show how the government and the corporate types had taylored the public school system to produce exactally this kind of 'citizen' (using the term rather loosely) Try reading some of the book. I did.
Laws are horrible moral guides, moral guides make even worse laws.
its obvious you did 0 research before posting, of course there are libertarian candidates in all forms of lower office.
cut and pasted from teh libertarian party website:
Currently, more than 590 Libertarians hold public office, more than all other third parties combined. In the 2003 elections, we elected 46 Libertarians, nearly half in higher-level races such as city and county council. During the year 2000, we ran more than 1430 candidates, more than twice as many as all other third parties combined.
We fielded candidates for 255 of the 435 seats in the U.S House as well as 25 of the 33 Senate seats up for election -- the first time in eighty years that any third party has contested a majority of the seats in Congress. Our slate of U.S. House candidates received 1.7 million votes, the first time any third party has received over a million votes for U.S. House.
i can't believe you got modded insightful, there must be a lot of ignorant people out there.
This is an absurd reading of US history. I am old enough to remember when the Cayahoga river burst into flames, when the Great Lakes were virtually devoid of anything other than carp, seaweed, and stink, when my mother washed the walls once a month to get the soot off. That was essentially libertarianism in action. People were free to try and sue companies for polluting the air and water, and the government did not intervene. But the reality was that one person or a small group of people could never afford to go up against a giant corporation. They would need a group or organzation to multiply their resources.
People were free to boycott products from companies that polluted, but of course, a single or a few individuals wouldn't make any difference at all. They would need to get organized. They would need a mechanism and an organization to get the word out.
Real change came about when the government did intervene, or rather, when individuals used government as a force mulitplier, as an organization to force corporations to behave more responsibly.
As for most of the superfund sites being government property: assuming this is true, it simply shows that nothing is a panacea, that no system works all the time or even most of the time. I certainly concede that about the current system. I could listen more to libertarians (or communists or anachists) if they could ever see the truth of this about their system.
wasn't Nazi Germany also pretty harmless for a while?
You're kidding, right?
Lemme guess: you went to one of those failed public schools, didn't you...
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Okay, this really isn't a beef with Badnarik, but with the question which itself presupposes that Americans at large are denied a choice. While one could argue such, the evidence rarely bears this out. In most cases, its simply because what every political scientist knows, that American is fairly well homogenized in terms of the sociopolitical spectrum, and there's only really room for two major candidates. We've had a decade of third party candidates now, and all they really do is siphon the votes of disaffected independants who would otherwise support a major candidate.
For that reason, I want to actually give kudo's to Badnariks support of Approval voting (although I oppose IRV, and if anyone mentions Condorcet I'll shoot 'em in the ass). Approval voting would allow people to express a mandate for a third party candidate or platform while letting them make a strategic vote for the candidate that both most represents them and has a real chance of winning. We may find that people are happier with their choices under approval voting, and I suspect that more people will participate, though thats only my opinion.
Kerry changed his mind this afternoon. For the third or fourth time in as many months. To say that it's "difficult to tell them apart" is a matter of opinion. For the average joe working his or her 9 to 5 job, yes. But that average joe isn't concerned about the issues that people who are attracted to minor parties is. Of course, I'm of the opinion that it is the responsibility of the electorate to research and make up their own mind on candidates and issues, but most people are inclined to let the mainstream media feed them the issues and then make snap decisions. Regardless, I think it's disingenuous for any minor party candidate to disparage any other party, even the big two, because it takes away from the quality of political debate in this country. That tactic is just pandering to the same sentiment that have disgruntled the votors into exploring minor parties to begin with.
Lastly, I don't think the "wasted vote" is an argument, it's a sentiment. People who are faced with supporting a minor party candidate, but still want their vote to count do in fact feel that their vote is wasted if they don't go for the electable candidate who best fits their sentiment. But that's academic.
I found Mr Badnarik's position on nuclear proliferation very troubling. His position seems to presume that the leaders of nations who get nukes will behave in a rational manner. That there will never be a nuclear exchange as a result of erroneous brinkmanship. Neither assumption holds validity.
In the case of assuming rational behavior, there are too many counter-examples to mention, but I'll list one that is dirtectly pertinent. The Atlantic Monthly featured a story about Pakistan -- I believe it was 9/2000 by Robert D. Kaplan, but I'm not certain (Atlantic archives are no longer viewable without a subscription). In the article, a high-ranking former member of the Pakistani military said that he felt it would be a good idea to nuke India. The writer incredulously asked whether he was aware of the consequences of a nuclear exchange between the two nations. He assured that even considering the fallout (literal and figurative), he thought it was a good idea. Mind you, this is not some illiterate on the street. This is a guy who knows exactly what would happen.
As to infallibility, although there was never an inadvertent launch as in "Fail Safe" nor a misconception leading to an exchange, we came perilously close. The Cuban Missile Crisis could have resulted in an exchange merely as a result of miscommunication. McNamara said there were other incidents where an unlucky series of events could have resulted in a nuclear exchange -- in other words, we got lucky.
Leaders of countries like Iran and North Korea know exactly what they are doing and why. But I don't credit those leaders with enough rationality to believe that they would not use nukes against enemies in a first strike, under some irrational calculation, such as the hatred Iran's leaders have for Israel.
Unfortunately, I don't think the US has the international standing to make any serious case against them as a result of (a) the failure to find WMDs in Iraq, and (b) our own programs to build new nukes. And no one else seems likely to take up the issue.
My sense is that nuclear weapons counter-proliferation is the most important national security issue we face. Even bio-weapons are probably less important, given that they are difficult to actually deploy. If an American city is nuked, our response to 9-11 will look like patty-cakes.
That argument is ridiculous. Even in direct elections the guy from Peoria still has a vote with the same value as the guy from New York.
Furthermore, even though New York has more people than Peoria, and will thus be pandered to more, there are still a lot more Peorias than there are New Yorks. Politicians would still have to address issues important to people in small towns and rural areas, even if they didn't spend much time in any one single small town.
I find it interesting that Badnarik finds popular vote more disenfranchising than our current system, where a State could have, for example, something like a 45%/43%/12% split (where the 12% represents all third party candidates put together), and thus 55% of the voters from that State are completely ignored.
And that's not to mention how disenfranchised voters already are in States with few electoral votes; and the urban vs. rural problem Badnarik describes already happens just as easily (if not more easily) on a State level than it would on a national level.
While the situation for plaintiffs against auto emissions might seem hopeless under libertarian law, there is a partial way out. In a libertarian society, the roads would be privately owned. This means that the auto emissions would be emanating from the road of the road owner into the lungs or airspace of other citizens, so that the road owner would be liable for pollution damage to the surrounding inhabitants. Suing the road owner is much more feasible than suing each individual car owner for the minute amount of pollutants he might be responsible for. In order to protect himself from these suits, or even from possible injunctions, the road owner would then have the economic incentive to issue anti-pollution regulations for all cars that wish to ride on his road. Once again, as in other cases of the tragedy of the commons, private ownership of the resource can solve many externality problems.
Hilarious-- we should privatize all the roads and then individuals can sue the road owner (I love how there's only ONE road owner in this hypothetical situation) for letting air pollution travel from the roads to their private property. Or we could just pass the Clean Air Act of 1970 and similar laws.
I knew this guy who was a die-hard communist. You could ask him a question of the type "doesn't communism blatantly fail in situation X?" And he would have some answer like "well, if every country was communist, then there would be no war, and because of that Y would happen to prevent situation X" or something like that. Libertarians are the same way when it comes to problems like air pollution. They have obviously spent lots of time trying to figure out how their beloved, one-sentence ideology can solve all problems.
This part was also funny:
Suppose, for example, that A builds a building, sells it to B, and it promptly collapses. A should be liable for injuring B's person and property and the liability should be proven in court, which can then enforce the proper measures of restitution and punishment. But if the legislature has imposed building codes and inspections in the name of safety, innocent builders (that is, those whose buildings have not collapsed) are subjected to unnecessary and often costly rules, with no necessity by government to prove crime or damage. They have committed no tort or crime, but are subject to rules, often only distantly related to safety, in advance by tyrannical governmental bodies. Yet, a builder who meets administrative inspection and safety codes and then has a building of his collapse, is often let off the hook by the courts. After all, has he not obeyed all the safety rules of the government, and hasn't he thereby received the advance imprimatur of the authorities?
So I assume we should also get rid of drunk driving laws. After all, we don't want to infringe on the rights of those who can drive drunk safely! Who cares if it would cause X thousand more deaths every year, the right to drunk drive is important! Outlawing it would violate our lovely little ideology!
An excerpt:
Also:
The founders of this country gave the world a stellar republican system which has lasted for 225 years or so. The electoral college is not broke, it's one of our greatest assets. The electoral college wasn't put into place to create an elite group of states, it was put into place to get smaller states to join up to the union, states that would be completely dominated by larger states otherwise.
The electoral college actually works for the disenfranchised, rather than against it. The sparse, rural states tend to have lower per capita incomes than those states which are "under-represented".
Large urban coastal states still dominate the American system, as they would in any republic, they simply dominate less because of the electoral college.
"Wage slavery" is marxist crap. For something relating to this, see this set of notes.
A strong respect for property rights is the only thing that makes living standards rise. That is what allows people to save up capital, causing cime-preferences to be lowered, and eventually time-preference schedules -- this leads to the process of civilization. But when you start engaging in systematic thievery (taxes, inflation, wealth-redistribution), this systematically lowers time-preferences, causing de-civilization.
You understanding of the USSR is also flawed. It is not just that the USSR wasn't socialism -- it is that socialism, as defined and understood by Marx, Engels, and the other socialists of the time, is impossible. The USSR's worst disasters, however, occured when they tried to implement socialism as fully as possible (by eliminating money). The socialist system is impossible because of the calculation and information problem. (Hence, to say it is "impractical" because of the "incentive problem", also a problem, is not correct). For another analysis of the problems of socialism (in this case, "anarchist" socialism), see The Anarcho-Statists of Spain.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
What are you talking about? I'm not talking about Tickenest, or anyone, taking independent action in the name of the U.S., or in my name.
I'm talking about him, personally, taking action to solve a problem that he, personally, perceives -- on his own terms and with his own resources, representing himself, taking responsibility for his actions.
And yes, it most definitely *is* in the interest of Americans to act based on their own conceptions. That's what people do.
I'd much rather have that than a group of people implementing foreign policy based on the conceptions of a right-wing nutjob with a messianic complex -- in my name, no less. I'd feel much better if the people of Iraq knew that the occupation of Iraq was not being in my name.
People should be able to act on their own, and face the consequences of their own actions -- not force other people to act in their stead and die for it.
These efforts can and are being done both collectively and voluntarily through organizations like The Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, International Crisis Group, and scores of others if you care too look. I don't know of any armed groups that act in defense of helpless people, but there should be. I'd much rather support that than what happened at Abu Ghraib.
The point is that there is a bulk of organizations with history and a wealth of experience that works with volunteers and donations that practice what what you call "foreign policy" -- not in the name of government, but just because they want to do good in the world, and care enough to do something about it. It *could* be done. The infrastructre and experience is there.
I think it's a good thing. I'd like to see more of it.
Software Wars
I personally find Badnarik a bit... I don't know... idealistic isn't quite the word. His ideas are mostly good, his background research seems to be good, his disclaimers are encouraging but I'm left with the nagging suspicion that he seriously underestimates the power of bureaucratic inertia and much other self-interested short-term thinking which keeps the USA in this current unhappy homeostasis. OTOH, possibly that's entirely appropriate for a candidate who doesn't genuinely expect to win this time around.
His chances of winning are directly proportional to the mnumber of people who are persuaded by his ideas. My personal opinion is that he's so honest and honorable that I don't care that I don't agree with him 100% on everything. I'm damn sure I agree with him more than Bush or Kerry.
Yours truly,
Mr. X
...vote for what you want...
The answers to your problems are:
1: Most of the problems with monopolies arise from the fact that corporations have the same rights as people, but with the added benifit that they have limited liability and corperate welfare. When Nike can state to a judge that their lies about their "lack of sweatshops" are constitutionaly protected by the 1st Amendment you know something is wrong.
2. Freedom begins and ends at property laws. If your body (drugs, euthinasia and abortion) is not free to do with as you please, what is the logical extrapolation of such a condition? This is the entry point for such atrocities as eminant domain and the War on (some) Drugs. As soon as I infringe on your right to own 100% of your property, including your body, I am at fault. This is the rational behind the anti-homicide laws.
3. If they have no hope of being elected then why do they have a higher number of publicaly elected officials than all other 3rd parties combined? And what's more, why should I feel bad or guilty for voting for someone that I feel represents my views better than the other candidates? Is this not what the concept of representational democracy was built on? If I voted for either Bush or Kerry I would be compromising myself a great deal. If I write in Mickey Mouse then I'm throwing away my vote. If Mr. Badnarik gets at least 5% of the popular vote then the Libertarians are given the same amount of Federal dollars as the Republicrats for the next election cycle (if we see it), and get a chance to to appear in any national debates that might spring forth. So how is my vote wasted?
Dok
"You can't screw the system, but you can give it a good fondling." -- Too lazy to look it up
You left out an option: 4. Act responsibly.
--- My dog ate my sig.