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Jill Stein and Gary Johnson Debate Online Tonight
Starting at 7 p.m. EDT (4 p.m. PDT), the Green and Libertarian candidates for President are debating on the Independent Voter Network. You can catch it via a Google+ hangout or Youtube both live and afterward (no word on flashless user unfortunately, unless anyone knows how to access youtube live streams). Since the big two candidates got some time here on Slashdot, we figured you guys might want to argue amongst yourselves about the third party platforms too. Note that there will be another debate with more candidates on Tuesday.
...is kind of hot.
Hey, I'm old.
The pursuit of absolute tolerance leads to the most rigorous and ludicrous intolerance. - REX MURPHY
There is only one political party that has been in charge of deleting rights for the last century; Repubmocrats. .8% incidental protein and .1% inert ingredients.
The Libertarians and Greens ARE honestly the REAL candidates along with other non-Repubmocrat offerings.
Repubmocrats are 99.1% plastic,
Leave First Post to the professionals.
Thanks! I got stuck in traffic and edited this up real quick (I blame traffic, I thought I had an extra hour). Just a quick tip: if you tag the story typo or typoinsummary, a jabber bot complains at the entire editorial team.
HAL 7000, fewer features than the HAL 9000, but just as homicidal!
I don't see C'thulu on the list. He belongs there. I'm tired of choosing the lesser evil.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The tea partier will hit you over the head with a pound of sacred dead tree matter, while explaining why corporate interests trump all else. Libertarians will just quote Ayn Rand instead.
Democrats and Republicans can reliably count on their party line votes, regardless of how they flip flop. That's why they focus more on the "independent" vote, come election time. The only way to influence the major parties anymore, is to show a significant uptick in the third party you most support. At the very least, you can affect the talking points of the next election.
The tea partier will hit you over the head with a pound of sacred dead tree matter, while explaining why corporate interests trump all else. Libertarians will just quote Ayn Rand instead.
So, the libertarians try to use two pounds of dead matter? Gotcha.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
Why are the red states the ones that get more from the government than they give?
Well, I think that adequately sums up the various positions we're going to see in this thread. Good work everyone!
I believe the precise explaination they give is "you dont need it". Im pretty certain Obama actually used those words ("they dont need it", in the context of taxation on the rich), and certainly ive seen that here on slashdot.
Who, precisely, was elected to determine how much I need, I still havent heard.
Now that you're old and stupid, you'll just keep making the same old mistakes. Gotcha.
Tea Partiers are generally okay with increasing spending on the military. They generally are okay with medicare as well given their demographic. Tea Partiers are also okay with the government telling people what they can ingest and who they can marry. For all their rhetoric about smaller government, they just mean it on things they don't like. They're not really for limited or small government when it comes to issues they support.
while the Tea Partiers believe in a big government morality police
Thats an absolutely fascinating theory. Im just struggling to find its connection to reality.
war on drugs?
war on fags?
war on damn dirty mexicans?
war on contraception?
war on evilution?
Look, Republican, Democrat... whichever party of big government you support, that's all good. Pick team blue if that floats your boat. But after the 3.5 years this president has had, no sane person should ever even consider voting for this guy. Doesn't mean Romney should get your vote - particularly not if you are a died-in-the-wool team blue fan of the big state (as opposed to a died-in-the-wool team red fan of the big state). But by no possible measure has this guy earned a chance at your vote. In addition to bringing forward all of the worst of Bush - on the war, crony capitalism, the Patriot Act, warrantless wiretaps, deficit spending, gitmo, on and on -- he's brought it to a new level with the drone strikes, secret kill orders against american citizens, deportations of immigrants, raids on medical marijuana dispensaries, etc. Even his crowning achievement of "healthcare reform" is a dud whether you supported national healthcare or opposed it.
On top of all of that you've got the abysmal economy, shrinking workforce with high unemployment, huge monetary expansion.... Holy crap dude, how could you even think of voting for this guy!?!? Forget what he says, look at what he's actually done!
Listen to the weirdos in the Libertarian/Green Party debate and see if you don't find someone who you could actually support for a reason other than "Yeah! Go Team Blue!" If you are a progressive, Jill Stein represents your views way, way, way more than the candidate with a big "D" after his name. (in the interest of fairness, for you conservatives - take a look at Gary Johnson. He's way, way, way more of a constitutional conservative than your candidate with a big "R" after his name) But for god's sake, don't vote for the guy who's already proven that he's not up to the job.
everything out of the Libertarian's mouth boils down to "fuck you, I got mine"
What you've said has no connection to reality.
Plenty of libertarians are not financially wealthy (I am downright impoverished - by choice). Plenty of libertarians donate to charity. People who want to protect what's theirs from competition are likely to turn to government for help, which is how we get all those cronyist regulations. Libertarians believe that all people are equal in their negative Rights.
Everything out of a real libertarian's mouth boils down to "violence is wrong", including violence by governments to buy loyalty of the mob with stolen loot!
--libman
How many pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, anti-religion in government, anti-war Republicans do you know? Libertarians may be to the right of Republicans on fiscal issues, but they are to the left of Democrats on social issues. Even Cenk Uygur, as progressive as he is, remarked how much further left Johnson was on many issues than most Democrats. There are some libertarian leaning Republicans, but the RNC showed us all exactly what the GOP thinks of that faction of their membership.
You know that little factoid is going to make your lives a world of pain when the trolls see it, right?
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
Christian individuals, and christian charity organizations, provide the great majority of all the funds and labor used to help disadvantaged people in the USA and abroad. It's a simple fact, despite your wishful truthyism.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
It isn't about whether everyone has exactly the same amount of money. The amount of imbalance though can be unhealthy. Consider a rose. Roses grow best in an acidic soil. The optimum pH is between 6.0 and 6.5. If I just heard "roses need acidic soil" and started pouring concentrated hydrocloric acid on the base of the rose bush, it would die.
Likewise, a certain amount of financial equality is good. Entrepreneurs and business owners can end up with quite a lot of money providing goods and services to the world. Individuals can inherit wealth and live on the interest its investment brings in. There is nothing at all wrong with this. However, when things go to an extreme they can have extreme consequences. Just like the rose bush, you need to keep things in balance in order for the economy to be healthy.
If you try to institute a soviet/communist style control and equalize everything, you crush a lot of the incentive to achieve in an honest way. The incentive to achieve through corrupt practices will flourish, however. I use Russia/USSR as an example. If you willfully go the other way and allow the few to obtain and control the vast majority of the wealth, you eventually end up with a lot of dead wealthy people and a river of blood in the streets. I can also use Russia/USSR as an example of this as well. Also France.
I'd kind of like to keep the rose bush alive and healthy without having to feed its roots with blood.
who prays for Satan? Who in 18 centuries has had the humanity to pray for the 1 sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain
Whatever happened to the avid discussions concerning Vote Swapping and Instant Runoff Voting? I liked when those topics were on the forefront because they gave me more hope than any of the candidates for fixing the seemingly impenetrable wall of muffled cries between the citizens' desires and the ruling bodies.
I don't ever want to vote against. I want to vote for.
[Sad face here]
Scarce, scared, scarred, sacred... -Col. Bruce Hampton
Libertarians want government. Therefore, there is a public sector and public property. So your whole post is off-base.
Yes the Constitution calls for the federal government to have a military but that is not the same as calling for our military expenditures to equal the rest of the world combined. Nor is to have a military base in half the countries in the world. Nor is it for us to constantly be at war without ever declaring war.
Medicare and Social Security are not in the Constitution at all. Yeah, people have paid in, but if you're not willing to ax it then you're not really for small government. Regardless of what marriage means historically there is no basis in the constitution for the Federal government to define it. Regardless of what drugs may do to someone there is no constitutional basis for controlling it. In fact, one has to wonder why prohibition of alcohol required a constitutional amendment but prohibition of drugs do not.
For all of your arguments, none address making the government smaller. The military, Medicare and Social Security are what make our government large. You can cut welfare, head start, school lunches, the interstate system, Nasa and whatever else you want but until you start talking about cutting the big three any rhetoric about small government is disingenuous.
This is a lie. Ron Paul has not endorsed Gary Johnson.
Here is Ron Paul's statements on war...
"Another term for preventive war is aggressive war - starting wars because someday somebody might do something to us. That is not part of the American tradition."
"We as commander in chief aren't making the decision to go to war. You know, the old-fashioned way, the Constitution, you go to the Congress and find out if our national security is threatened. And I'm afraid what's going on right now is similar to the war propaganda that went on against Iraq. They didn't have weapons of mass destruction. And it was orchestrated and it was, to me, a tragedy of what's happened these last ten years, the death and destruction, $4 trillion in debt. So no, it's not worthwhile going to war. If you do, you get a declaration of war and you fight it and you win it and get it over with."
"It should be harder to promote war, especially when there are so many regrets in the end. In the last 60 years, the American people have had little to say over decisions to wage war. We have allowed a succession of presidents and the U.N. to decide when and if we go to war, without an express congressional declaration as the Constitution mandates.
Since 1945, our country has been involved in over 70 active or covert foreign engagements. On numerous occasions we have provided weapons and funds to both sides in a conflict. It is not unusual for our so-called allies to turn on us and use these weapons against American troops. In recent decades we have been both allies and enemies of Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, and the Islamists in Iran. And where has it gotten us?
The endless costs resulting from our foolish policies, in human lives, injuries, tax dollars, inflation, and deficits, will burden generations to come. For civilization to advance, we must reduce the number of wars fought."
"For civilization to advance, we must reduce the number of wars fought. Two conditions must be met if we hope to achieve this.
First, all military (and covert paramilitary) personnel worldwide must refuse to initiate offensive wars beyond their borders This must become a matter of personal honor for every individual.
Second, the true nature of war must be laid bare, and the glorification must end. Instead of promoting war heroes with parades and medals for wars not fought in the true defense of our country, we should more honestly contemplate the real results of war: death, destruction, horrible wounds, civilian casualties, economic costs, and the loss of liberty at home.
The neoconservative belief that war is inherently patriotic, beneficial, manly, and necessary for human progress must be debunked. These war promoters never send themselves or their own children off to fight. Their hero, Machiavelli, must be buried once and for all."