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John McAfee Denied Libertarian Party Nomination For President (reason.com)
SonicSpike quotes an article at Reason: In a decisive rout for pragmatism over purity, the Libertarian Party has nominated former New Mexico Republican Governor and 2012 nominee Gary Johnson for president. Johnson came within an eyelash of winning on the first ballot, pulling 49.5 percent of the vote, just short of the required majority. (Libertarian activist Austin Petersen and software magnate John McAfee came in second and third, respectively, with 21.3 percent and 14.1 percent.) With sixth-place finisher Kevin McCormick (and his 0.973 percent of the vote) booted from the second ballot, Johnson sailed through with 55.8 percent.
John Mcafee answered questions here on Slashdot in 2013. Reason's article includes a video of their interview this weekend with the party's official nominee Gary Johnson, who hopes to qualify for the nationally-televised presidential debates by drawing 15% of the support in national opinion polls.
John Mcafee answered questions here on Slashdot in 2013. Reason's article includes a video of their interview this weekend with the party's official nominee Gary Johnson, who hopes to qualify for the nationally-televised presidential debates by drawing 15% of the support in national opinion polls.
The U.S. is the biggest circus and political clown-force-farcical there is, and in their own minds they matter more than anyone else, and thus deserve the most attention. Who said you can't campaign for 48 months before the actual voting begins?
If TTIP gets through, the US's broken system will be exported. By "broken" I mean the way that wealthy lobbying groups bribe/finance politicians to get them to pass the laws they want. Simple corruption.
Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.
McAfee? Purity? They must be talking about his drugs.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
He wasn't denied, he just plain lost. Theres a difference.
Denied is a sensationalist headline trying to get clicks.
Lost is the reality of a batshit crazy nut job 'running' for president.
The real story here is that he got any votes at all.
The only question though ... is WHY THE FUCK IS THIS ON SLASHDOT?
Don't care when he shits either, just for reference.
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You make it sound like the party was colluding against him in dark rooms filled with cigar smoke.
The way I see it, the Libertarian party wasn't being pragmatic at all. You see, there's significant portion of the Republican party that is very, very libertarian leaning. They're concerned about the constitution, the rule of law, and the size of government. When Ted Cruz suspended his campaign, these people had nowhere to go - until Austin Petersen started to court them.
Mr. Petersen started to win these people over in droves. The Blaze, the television network owned by Glenn Beck, even carried the last Libertarian party debate, with several re-run to ensure that many of the conservatives left in the cold could see what was going on, offering them a potential option.
The Libertarians had a chance - a once in a lifetime chance - to grow their party by leaps and bounds with Austin Petersen. He's bright, articulate, extremely dedicated to the rule of law, dedicated to the free exercise of religion, and not doing everything by executive fiat. But the Libertarians decided to puff-puff-pass on him and run Gary, again.
And then there's the whole strip naked on stage thing.
At this point I'm convinced that the Libertarian party isn't serious about electing a president. You cannot win elections when the chairman of your party is stripping naked on stage. It's embarrassing.
On the (R) side we have a crony capitalist progressive who wants to "open up libel laws" so that he can sue people he doesn't like, and on the (D) side we have a marxist criminal progressive who wants to shred the second amendment. What do the Libertarians offer in 2016? Dancing naked and marijuana.
I still think a third party is the answer, but the Libertarian party obviously is not it. They're not serious.
Love sees no species.
Is that like a person being denied life by a murderer? I'm not saying that McAfee is a nutjob murderer who didn't get caught, but if he was it would be just like that.
You mean the US CAN vote for someone else than Trump or Hillary? So the people ARE to blame if one of the former becomes president and does something stupid?
They didn't want the campaign slogan to be "Uninstall McAfee" and they especially didn't want Hillary to call herself, "America's Security Essentials."
John McAfee? Really? I thought he was banned from the planet?
Or the fact that the head of Russia's Liberal Democratic Party just stated that he thinks that Russia should obliterate the Faroe Islands as a show of force?
Friends! Help! A guinea pig tricked me!
He wants to deprive gays of the right to marry, and wants to make abortion illegal. These two items are massive infringements on civil liberties and about as far from libertarian ideals as one can get. People like Cruz and Santorum cater to the religious crazy wing of the Republican party and are one of the main reasons the GOP is in such disarray.
morons! It is a simple as that.
Then what do you call those that are going to vote for Crooked Hillary! and her lying ass (and it's not like the rest of her ever told the truth, either...) that hasn't accomplished ANYTHING?
Hoping to one day grow up enough to be called morons?
If - taking a country pretty much at random - Nigeria is corrupt, it does not affect me. If lobbyists in the US get to write their own laws and those laws are then exported to a country I live in via TTIP, that affects me personally. Capito?
Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.
That is all I had to say to you other than, "well said."
You say "knows", present tense, as if that election is still unresolved. Which implies that you still -- almost sixteen years later -- reject the findings of every recount -- both official and unofficial -- that found George W. Bush to be the legitimate winner.
What's it like to hold a grudge like that? I'm genuinely curious.
> If TTIP gets through, the US's broken system will be exported. By "broken" I mean the way that wealthy lobbying groups bribe/finance politicians [...]
Ha, ha, ha. The EU system is more or less as broken as the US is. Guess with whom the EU commissars spend most of their time? Lobbyists (an example here).
Of course the whole purpose of TTIP is to render this broken process ever more efficient. That's why I oppose it.
Remember: rot and corruption is universal. Gotta fight it at home first.
The overwhelming majority of American "Libertarians" are just Republicans with a couple gripes. Their underlying sense of duty to the GOP will come through and they will vote for Trump as they are trained to see nothing worse for the world than anyone named Clinton. They know that they cannot block a Clinton presidency by voting for a third party.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
There shouldn't be a libertarian party. Everybody should be his own candidate.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Rather than vote for the neo-Jackson fascist (Trump) or the neo-Nixon pathological liar (Clinton), I'm voting for Gary Johnson. I have voted for the lesser of two evils in the past, but never has the lesser been so evil.
My SIG is a P226
single-party system, postering as a two-party system
You're full of shit. There are at least four choices available for president. The voter is the only limiting factor.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Nobody in any other country is corrupt like they are here.
This is true. No other country is corrupt in the way that America is corrupt. In other countries, corruption is illegal. Only in America are our most corrupt practices fully legal and right out in the open. Hillary didn't take under the table bribes from Wall Street bankers. Nope, they donated millions to her super-PAC and paid her over $600k in "speaking fees". This was all above board, and reported to the FEC and IRS.
Or, you're posting to a US based website, hence it is going to focus more on events in the US, just like any other domestic website in any other country would do.
There are at least four choices available for president. The voter is the only limiting factor.
Also, third parties do not need to win to matter. The Green Party campaign in 2000 cost the Democrats the election, and sent a clear message that they could lose more votes on the left than they were gaining in the center. Likewise, the Libertarians show that there is a constituency for free market economics without the intolerant social conservatism. Someday the Republicans may stop worrying about toilets and go after those votes. Or maybe the Democrats will start focusing on growing the pie instead of how to slice it up.
The purpose of 3rd parties is to push new ideas into the Overton Window, and get the major parties to adopt them. If you look at American party platfoms in 1900, the most successful political party over the next 100 years was the Socialist Workers Party. They advocated public pensions, welfare, unemployment pay, and free healthcare for the elderly. They didn't win many elections, but all of those policies were adopted, and are now the law of the land.
If you want to make a difference, vote 3rd party, and send a message. This is especially true if you live in non-swing state, as most Americans do, where your vote is otherwise meaningless.
No, an intentionally 'weak' candidate that presented no real opposition cost the democrats the elections in 2000 (Re, 1968). And this is the intention now. This whole "spoiler" angle is a fraud. A guilt trip brought on by the loser's voters who believe they are entitled to our votes and try to blame us for everything that went wrong.
The Overton Window needs to be smashed. In fact the wall containing it needs to be demolished.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Oh, but it's not "corruption" at all. Everything will consume as much and grow as big as it can until it bumps into some resistance. It is nature, it is life. All things truly are equal. That would include us.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
This is such a myth. Al Gore gave up on Florida recounts where he actually won, and also he couldn't even win his home state - which would have put him over the top anyhow.
And yet here we are just four presidential elections later, and the Democrats are leaning towards former Secretary Clinton. You can send a clear message all that you want to, but that doesn't make any difference if the people on the other end don't even bother to read the message.
Maybe, but it could also be argued that they had no effect at all, and that instead, the rise of muckrakers and investigative journalism brought sunshine to dark corners of public policy. It could easily be argued that the decline of American politics into pure noise has been caused by the decline of the news media as a career choice for the best and brightest, caused in turn by a combination of media consolidation and chronically low wages. (Great pun in that last sentence, too.)
If I thought that message would have an effect, I would do that. I probably will anyway, but I wouldn't blame the people who don't bother. Unfortunately, at this point, our system of democracy is so broken that, at least at the federal level, our votes are almost as meaningless as in the mock elections that we used to joke about in other countries. The two parties are indistinguishable on all the issues that actually matter and have a nonzero chance of actually resulting in changes to our laws.
You basically have some wedge issues like abortion and the death penalty that tend to divide the parties, with the Republicans coming down on the moral side of abortion and the public good side of the death penalty, and Democrats choosing the opposite sides. These issues are so complex and thorny that nobody wants to touch them beyond using them as a cheap 30-second sound bite, which means no matter who you vote for, we're not going to see anything happen in either area. The only way either will change is through ballot measures.
And then you have the core issues, like privacy, national security, the economy, etc. In these areas, although there's ostensibly a huge difference between the parties, in practice, they're nearly identical.
On the economy, Democrats tax and spend, while Republicans borrow and spend, devaluing the dollar, effectively taxing and spending. In a perverse way, the Republican approach in that area turns out to be more fair because it taxes the rich more than the poor, proportional to their savings and income, but they make up for it by trying to shove regressive tax structures down our throats, so it's basically a wash. At best, Democrats avoid more of the really foolish decisions like lowering taxes on the ultra-wealthy, but that's like saying that shooting yourself in the foot is better than shooting yourself in the gut. It is technically true, but either way, you're still shooting yourself. Neither party is fiscally conservative, because neither party has the self-control to limit spending.
About the only area where they differ meaningfully is in their approach to regulations—whether they favor regulations or trust in the free market. Unfortunately, neither approach works all that well. Both work under certain circumstances. Neither party seems to recognize that, or acknowledge that there are situations where their approach falls apart. This mostly results in bad regulations that don't have the desired effect, coupled with missing r
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
1.) State and federal law and international treaty put a variety of requirements on the Florida 2000 selection of electors. These laws were not followed. Ergo Florida never sent a legitimate set of electors to cast their ballots.
2.) The complete Florida recount done by researchers found that, despite the illegal disenfranchisement of many voters, using the "clear intent" standard Gore got more votes in 2000 in Florida than Bush did. The press coverage universally buried the lede and talked about how the limited recounts Gore called for would have left Bush the winner.
Those are the facts. Those of us who push for history to recognize them, and for the political system to make sure the situation does not re-occur, are not "holding a grudge".
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You cannot wash away blood with blood
And yet here we are just four presidential elections later, and the Democrats are leaning towards former Secretary Clinton.
But now the leftist insurgency that Ralph Nader headed in 2000 is happening inside the Democratic party, and instead of getting 1% of the vote, Bernie Sanders has 40%. He isn't winning, but he is doing way better than Ralph did.
Meanwhile, Trump is dragging the Republican Party away from hardline social conservatism (he isn't anti-gay, doesn't care which toilet people use, and is no ideologue about abortion) and focusing instead on economic issues that people (apparently) care about far more.
Because this is a US based site. Take your euro (or whatever) supremacist attitude somewhere else. There's no reason we can't cover both.
Your facts are wrong. The laws were followed including the time limits to certify the results of the election. Florida certainly did send legitimate electors.
Oh, and international law only applies to a country if that country accepts it's application by treaty or if it is imposed by subjugation of their sovereignty. So if you want to cite international law, you must show where we are subject to it. But the supreme court case specifically dealt with this already and said you could not change the rules mid process which is why they could not recount the votes enough for Gore to win in the allotted time span.
Either way, the result is the same, whether the left votes for somebody else or doesn't bother to show up on election day. They failed to learn the real lesson, which was that a centrist Democrat can only win if that candidate is popular and energetic and enthusiastic (like Bill Clinton) and doesn't act like a Republican. If you have a choice between a Republican and a Democrat who acts like a Republican, the Republican will win every time—doubly so if the Republican acts enough like a Democrat.
The only good news is that the President's power is limited by Congress, so no matter who we pick, there's only so much damage that he/she can do in four years, and then we have a chance to try again and maybe get it right this time.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
"Denied" would be the party not accepting him because he's not a member or didn't file the right paperwork or whatever. Dude lost, not only because he didn't have the credibility with most of the party that Gary Johnson has, but also because he's too crazy and embarrassing even for us.
"Foiled" would be ok :-)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
The voters... Everything depends on the initiative of the voters... The whole routine. This very moment they could turn their back on the the republicans and democrats, turning their money into fertilizer, and make it a race between the Libertarians and the Greens. It is strictly their choice to make.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
According to you and the aforementioned late doctor, these people are apparently no longer human and can be disposed of. No matter that many people who are comatose and on life support eventually recover from their injuries/illnesses and resume their lives.
Indeed current practice is to disconnect those people when there are no signs of brain activity. And no, despite what Hollywood tells you not "many people" recover from Vegetative state (VS). Very, very few ever do, and this is often attributed to misdiagnosis of VS.
McAfee has a history as a successful tech entrepreneur and is therefore relevant to Slashdot. He founded McAfee Associates, an early anti-virus company, in 1987; he resigned in 1994 and sold his stake shortly after that. Afterward, he had successful investments in Tribal Voice and Zone Labs. But still later he lost a lot of his fortune due to bad investments and the 2007 financial crash, which caused heavy losses on his stock holdings and his mansions. He continues to start and invest in tech companies.
You have an excellent point about the importance of the Brexit. The site hasn't been completely silent on the subject - see https://politics.slashdot.org/... and https://politics.slashdot.org/... - but there is plenty of room for more discussion of this story.
Sadly, the fact that Johnson is absolutely not "libertarian" and is basically "Donald Trump with Pro-Pot Support" really doesn't push anything new into the political arena, given that in the past 4 years we've seen a move towards near-national pro-pot support at the state level...
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
By the time the elections come around, the Democrats might no longer have a candidate. Is it possible to continue running for President while indicted on federal charges?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Look up at the URL of the site you are on, I don't know if you knew this or not, but .org is a US domain, not an EU domain.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?