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Libertarian Candidate Excluded From Debate For Refusing Corporate Donations
fishdan writes "I'm a long time Slashdot member with excellent karma. I am also the Libertarian candidate for U.S. Congress in the Massachusetts 6th District. I am on the ballot. I polled 7% in the only poll that included me, which was taken six weeks ago, before I had done any advertising, been in any debates or been on television. In the most recent debate, the general consensus was that I moved a very partisan crowd in my favor. In the two days since that debate, donations and page views are up significantly. Yesterday I received a stunning email from the local ABC affiliate telling me they were going to exclude me from their televised debate because I did not have $50,000 in campaign contributions, even though during my entire campaign I have pointedly and publicly refused corporate donations. They cited several other trumped up reasons, including polling at 10%, but there has not been a poll that included me since the one six weeks ago — and I meet their other requirements."
Can we get a Slashdot poll for this guy? I'm sure he'll hit at least 10%.
Make your own video. Post it on Youtube. Make it viral.
Ezekiel 23:20
So how do tv stations work in your utopian libertarian pipe dream? Does the person with the most money just buy the most powerful transmitter to drown out everyone elses signal?
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Maybe you are actually reading this and can answer a question about Libertarians.
I keep hearing "whoever initiates force is wrong" and the point of the government is to be a framework to resolve contract disputes, as well as step in after someone initiates force against someone else. Skipping the fact there is a large private industry around dispute resolution the Libertarians fail to address, I'm unclear who initiates force in a very large number of situations. I'll give one here, and hopefully you can explain it in a way that I can understand. Usually I get the answer that goes back to "the person owning the land you are standing on has rights, you have none at all" which conflicts with the "initiate force" rules.
A Black man, Bob, is walking down the street. He sees a cafe named "Joe's Cafe" with a big "open" sign in the window and on the door. Feeling like a bite and feeling invited in, he walks in. The sign on the podium when he walks in says "please seat yourself". He walks to a booth and sits down. Joe, the owner, walks up and informs him that his type is not served there, and he must leave. Bob says "I'm not leaving until I get a meal." Joe calls the police and requests he be arrested for trespass.
The Libertarian explanation is that force is initiated by Bob for not leaving when forced to by Joe. Logic indicates that Joe invited the public (including Bob) in, and throwing him out is the initiation of force. And the Libertarian stance always seems to come down to the owner of the land has rights, and nobody else on that land does. Though, when I word it that way, I get yelled at, but never corrected with anything that doesn't directly lead back to the same conclusion. Though one person did send me a link to a youtube video that explains that you can't have personal freedom without property, and it's the personal freedom that is the basis of property, but no explanation of why it works out that personal freedom on someone else's property is determined, in part, but the owner of that property. That circularly comes back to the freedom coming not from personal freedom, but from the property itself.
I personally think of myself as a libertarian, but I've never met a Libertarian who was a libertarian, though most get offended when I say that.
Learn to love Alaska
Out of curiosity, what made you run third party rather than trying to fix things from within? There are obstacles either way of course, was there something that made you convinced whichever party you were closer to ideologically was irreparably damaged? Did you consider, or did you run in a republican or democratic party?
There are ample peer reviewed studies showing that doctors medical decisions are influenced by things as simple as free dug samples for their patients. "Just take the money" is a very bad idea.
(Here's one of those studies, for example: http://baywood.metapress.com/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,9,13;journal,49,167;linkingpublicationresults,1:300313,1 )
Ask Obama.
I still believe Obama actually wanted to fix a lot of things. I think he quickly found out a few reasons why he can't make any serious change... dark secret reasons. Yeah, I know "conspiracy theory -- ignore the nut bag." I didn't vote for Obama... I voted Libertarian. But the change in Obama was remarkable and I don't think it's because 'he's just crooked like the rest of them.' I think Kennedy was the last rebel from the backstage establishment and we know how that ended up.
There's still lots of hope though. The problem is this internet thing. The establishment pretty much controls the media and all the usual stuff. But this internet thing... no one has figured out how to control it yet and it's too late to try to take it away. (Seriously, if they were forward thinking enough, they would have created an internet competitor that was 'fun, addicting and *SAFE(tm)* for public use' long ago... but now it's kind of too late. Only Steve Jobs could have pulled off a stunt like that and he's gone.
This internet thing... it may free the people yet.
Why did this guy get marked troll? If you believe voting is any more real than pro wrestling I have some magic beans you might be interested in. Want proof? As much as I think the guy is snooker loopy on a lot of thing Alex Jones has the proof in video on his website. When the Ron Paul supporters asked to be heard according to the RNCs own rules they held a vote to change those rules and someone managed to get their cell camera to where you can see the teleprompter and the teleprompter had the results of the vote before the vote had been cast thus showing the whole process fake.
The "choices" you WILL get, no matter what you do, will be corporate approved shill A or B, that's it. Go to YouTube and watch the videos of those that actually counted the ballots in CN and NH where they say "The numbers for our district and what the RNC claimed are not even close" as Mittens was doing poorly in those states so they just gave him magical free votes. Remember if you control the primary outcome then it doesn't matter what happens in the general election, since both sides are "your guy" so its heads you win tails they lose. They control the primary process, they control the debates, they make sure only shills get the two slots so who gives a shit which shill gets it? A shill is a shill is a shill and as long as he'll cash the checks and give them the laws the corps don't give a rat's ass.
In the end I urge everyone to watch this video about voting as while i don't agree with the libertarians on much, being more of a socialist myself, i have to agree with this libertarian on this issue, its pointless. you can't change a corrupt institution by using the rules set forth by that corrupt institution, because as with Paul they'll just change the rules and there is nothing you can do about it.
Personally I say grab every damned dime you can and wait for the collapse, which now is pretty much inevitable. Here is another video by the same guy where he simply gives you the numbers and lets you decide. Look at the hockey stick chart in the middle of the video, in 1929 when the stock market collapsed we had 125% of GDP in the market and that took us to 1953 to fully recover to pre crash levels. How much do we have in now? Over 400% of GDP and rising which means when this bubble pops it'll make 1929 look like a minor glitch.
You have one party that is tax slightly and spend heavily, another that is give tax breaks and spend MORE heavily, nothing you can say or do will change the direction we are heading, a collapse is inevitable. Grab what you can, take care of your own, its all you can really do. On the bright side when the whole thing collapses hopefully we can start over and have a true democracy instead of the corporate sham we've had for half a century. Ike warned us the MIC would be just the start and he was right, now the corps own the whole show and its pro wrestling to entertain the public and keep their minds off what is really happening.
Sorry for the length but this is a subject I feel strongly about and I'll just end with the wisdom of George Carlin "Know why they call it The American Dream? Because you have to be asleep to believe in it".
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
According to the State of Massachusetts (warning: PDF), 260,618 people voted in the Congressional race in the 6th District in 2010.
He says he's polling at 7 percent support in that district; let's take him at his word. That means to estimate his base of support we can multiply 7 percent by 260,618, which yields 18,243.
So what would it take to raise $50,000? If he limited himself to raising money strictly from that 7 percent -- who are presumably his base -- he'd only need them to give $2.75 each to hit that mark. Two dollars and seventy-five cents. If he raised his ask to $10 -- still a small ask in the world of political contributions -- he'd have $182,000. That's not a huge amount of money -- the current incumbent spent $2 million in the 2010 cycle -- but it can buy an awful lot of mailers, yard signs, campaign t-shirts, and other tools to get your name and message out. No corporate contributions required.
Look, I'm as big an advocate for getting money out of politics as you're likely to find, but this is simply not a case of being required to raise Big Money in order to play. You don't have to raise Big Money, you just have to raise some money, because without a little money you can't afford the most basic tools a campaign needs to win. There's nothing un-democratic about giving your supporters yard signs. If you can't rouse yourself to gather the resources needed to do even that, it shouldn't come as a shock when people start assuming you're not a serious candidate.
Read my blog.
Yes? Notice how you do not see him arguing for a law that ABC should be forced to televise him? Libertarianism is about not forcing people to do things. Critizing how things are done, however, is perfectly cromulent with being a libertarian.
How inappropriate to call this planet Earth, when clearly it is Ocean.