So how would you propose and pass this law or amend the constitution? Both of these require initiation by state and federal legislatures who are composed of representatives who benefit from the crappy electoral system we currently have. No Republican or Democratic state or federal lawmaker will even consider a bill that makes it harder for them to get re-elected. So again, how exactly do you intend to change the voting system without voting for a third party that actually has election reforms as part of their platform? You can't beat the two-party system by voting for either of the two parties.
Under US law, as well as under libertarianism, I am generally not legally obligated to jump into the water to save you from drowning, or to give you mouth-to-mouth resuscitation when you are unable to breathe on your own, or to let you reside on my property and feed you.
Those aren't exactly analogous. Under US law, if you push someone into the water and then find out they can't swim and you don't render assistance to save them, you can indeed be charged with a crime ranging from manslaughter to murder depending on intent. This is closer to a proper analogy. In this case, you took an action which put a life in the balance. If you choose not to aid to keep them alive then depending on your intent, it could be involuntary manslaugher (pushing them into the water was an accident) or some range of murder if pushing them into the water was intentional.
In the case of abortion if gestational product (whatever it is called) is considered a rights bearing human entity then if the pregnancy was accidental, it would be a lower crime such as criminally negligent homicide. If it was due to rape, than the rapist should also be charged with felony murder rule. If the life of the mother is at risk to carry to term, justifiable homicide is appropriate. If the life of the fetus is at risk to carry to term, euthanasia would seem to be the appropriate term.
If the gestational product is not considered a rights bearing human entity, then removal of those cells should be no different under the law than the removal of any other organ.
I am a registered big L Libertarian and I went to the national convention in 2012. That being said I wasn't a delegate and just happened to be able to go for the weekend because it was in a city less than 2 hours away from me. The naked party chair was a bit of a weird aberration and isn't normal for even the Libertarians... I don't know if he was on drugs or thought it would be a Trump-esque move just to be shocking and get media attention. He is claiming now it was over a bet. Regardless, not a good move considering the public's perception of third parties in general.
That being said, if you live in a state that generally goes for one party, the electoral college makes your vote wasted anyway. You might as well get counted as not supporting the first past the post two-party monopoly that we currently have.
You have to realize at the convention, it is mostly hardcore libertarians that have the means and desire to go. There are far more libertarians that don't have the time, money, or motivation to attend a 3 day political convention.
I am far down the libertarian trail and I not only believe in tests for driver's licenses, but for more rigorous testing and renewal testing. Driving is a privilege and not a right. You want to drive on your own property, no license is required. If you drive on public roads, you have to meet minimum requirements to be allowed to do so.
Of course, on that issue, self-driving cars will make licenses obsolete in a generation...
The general libertarian ideal is that marriage not be recognized by the government at all. The practical policy decision is that until marriage laws can be removed from the books, they should be applied to all consenting adults equally. This is what is codified in the Libertarian Party platform: https://www.lp.org/platform
Arguing that libertarian beliefs are all based on contracts is a poor way to go about the abortion debate. Based on that line of reasoning, parents can "abort" their children until they turn 18. Even if you allowed for a non-legally binding contract of minors, you've moved the abortion line back to where a child can reason enough to make any implied contract with their parents. What compensation does a child offer to bring to the table in a parenting contract?
Taking care of a child is not something that is based on a contract, it's based on the societal obligation to take care of those that cannot care for themselves. How much care is required by law is based on intrinsic human rights, not contracts. Thus we come back to the real argument of abortion, at what point in gestation does an entity acquire rights? It's not an obvious answer from a religious, scientific, or any other basis. Thus I can support libertarians with varying beliefs on it.
From a policy perspective, I think it must remain legal. Even if you believe that a fetus has rights, if you accept that not everyone else believes that, you cannot use the rule of law to force your beliefs on others. I realize this isn't a perfect argument either (it could be used to allow slavery as well). In the interim, the government should definitely get out of restricting access to and education about contraceptive methods. If women (and men) are informed and have access to prevent conceptions they do not want, it will greatly reduce the demand for abortions.
Someday science may make it possible to have perfect and inexpensive contraception that religion accepts and the means of growing a child outside of a womb and we won't have to worry about it anymore except in medical cases.
Abortion is a topic which is definitely not resolved within libertarians. It does indeed hinge on the point at which a human exists and has rights. Until we settle that as a society, I can accept "pro life" and "pro choice" views within the party. Myself, I view abortion as a less bad alternative to banning it. Abortions will happen even if it is illegal. The effects of an abortion ban are worse than the reality of legalized, but restricted abortions. From an idealistic perspective, yes abortion shouldn't be allowed. From a realistic view, it's something that people who are desperate will obtain and thus needs to be regulated, but allowed.
Umm, I'm pretty sure the list of most popular libertarians on the planet doesn't include that guy I've never heard of because I AM A LIBERTARIAN. After doing a google search for him, he seems like much more of an anarchist than a libertarian. Also, he's not even an American, so throwing him into a discussion on American politics is a bit of a non-sequitur...
Speaking of non-libertarians, I'm pretty sure they've heard of some famous people who identify themselves as libertarians including: Penn and Teller (both of them) Drew Carey Kurt Russell Andrew Napolitano Trey Parker John Stossel
How exactly do you change the voting system by A) voting for either of the two parties which the current voting system benefits or B) not voting? Or is there another non-third party voting option that will magically bring change to the current broken political process?
So how is Gary Johnson not a competitive candidate but Austin Petersen is? A former governor who won a general election and then a re-election and then went on to get a record number of general election presidential votes in 2012 vs a guy who owns a website and isn't even notable enough to have his own wikipedia page.
If Gary got 1% of the vote between a moderate republican and an incumbent president, imagine what he can do against the two most reviled candidates in modern times?
And robots cannot spit in your food and are a lot easier to disinfect. Expect food safety to improve by another leap and bound when robots replace humans in food preparation.
You lost me with the cutting funding for social programs keeps people in poverty. Spending on social programs is highly correlated with keeping people in poverty. I understand now why you don't think public debt is a problem because we can print money... You don't understand economics. If you subsidize something you get more of it. Social programs subsidize being in poverty. Is it any wonder the more we pay for welfare, the less likely people are to get off of welfare?
If you live in America, I'd be more worried about debt and the current political clusterfuck than any emissions from burning fossil fuels... Those are much more likely to affect the quality of life for your children and grandchildren than any small changes in average global temperature.
Yes, because the government would never intentionally release radioactive material on an unsuspecting public as a test of the effects of fallout... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Seriously this. People are always coming up with rare occurrences where a computer might fail when humans fail at driving in huge numbers across the country on a minutely (is that a word?) basis. Dear lord, I drive in Atlanta traffic and if a self driving car can use a blinker, stay in their lane, and navigate a roundabout it is already leagues ahead of meatbag drivers.
I loved Battlefield 1942 and things just went downhill from there. The original was simple, fun, and well balanced. WW2 is a great setting for these games because the weaponry is limited and crude. When you have an automatic weapon with 20 rounds and fires inaccurately as all hell while running it takes some actual skill to use it effectively. Modern weapons all fire much faster and more accurately.
The other reason to hate on the new games is all the "upgrades" that you can buy and special bonuses. In BF1942 you had 5 loadouts you could choose and they were all equal minus some variation in the factions (that were still well balanced). Everyone had equal access to the same vehicles. Log into a modern game now and Timmy who bought all the best shit can mow down waves of people and then call in an airstrike while you who just started playing is defending yourself with a staple gun.
I'm nearing 30 and weigh 135ish lbs. I've always been skinny and it isn't because I have a good diet. I eat all kinds of foods that I've been told will get me fat or give me diabetes. I'm sitting here next to a bag of pork rinds and mini donuts at the office... The difference for me is I've never really eaten large portions of food. I eat kids meal sized portions and can almost never eat an entire plate of food at a restaurant. I just get hungry quickly...
I've also jokingly referred to my diet as the caffeine diet. You drink enough caffeine and your body will burn off any calories you take in! It probably at least counters the Mountain Dew addiction right?
I get where you are coming from and it SOUNDS good. But the burden of proof for all of these tax benefits for oil companies is on the people making the claim on these trillions. The IMF link you cite certainly gives data for huge subsidies, but they count global warming, air pollution, and other externalities as "subsidies." And not only do they count it, but based on the graphs, it's the lion's share of their trillions estimates.
Most of this arises from countries setting energy taxes below levels that fully reflect the environmental damage associated with energy consumption.
Based on that logic doctors get tax subsidies for making medical mistakes that kill people if they don't get sued for it. You can't realistically count estimates of global or local damages as a tax subsidy or the words tax and subsidy have no meaning anymore. Going into the actual data for the USA from the IMF citation provided, the actual pre-tax subsidies totals $10.94 billion. The remainder is global warming (185 billion), air pollution (180 billion), congestion (120 billion), accidents (48 billion), road damage (8 billion) and forgone consumption tax revenue (52 billion). So yes, they are actually counting road accidents as a subsidy and even worse, ROAD DAMAGE which fuel tax pay for maintenance of whereas ELECTRIC CARS DO NOT. If anything road damage "subsidies" should be negative as carbon fuel taxes pay for road maintenance.
So back to the $11 billion of direct tax subsidies. In 2015 according to the EIA https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs... the USA consumed 7.08 billion barrels of petroleum products. Ignoring the fact that a barrel of oil yields more than a barrel of products and ignoring all other fossil fuel energy sources (natural gas and coal primarily), that amounts to a tax subsidy of 3.7c per gallon of fuel (42 gallons per barrel). Are we really claiming that the huge tax subsidies oil companies get is that extreme vs the federal fuel taxes of 18.4c per gallon of gasoline or 24.4 for diesel?
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So how would you propose and pass this law or amend the constitution? Both of these require initiation by state and federal legislatures who are composed of representatives who benefit from the crappy electoral system we currently have. No Republican or Democratic state or federal lawmaker will even consider a bill that makes it harder for them to get re-elected. So again, how exactly do you intend to change the voting system without voting for a third party that actually has election reforms as part of their platform? You can't beat the two-party system by voting for either of the two parties.
Under US law, as well as under libertarianism, I am generally not legally obligated to jump into the water to save you from drowning, or to give you mouth-to-mouth resuscitation when you are unable to breathe on your own, or to let you reside on my property and feed you.
Those aren't exactly analogous. Under US law, if you push someone into the water and then find out they can't swim and you don't render assistance to save them, you can indeed be charged with a crime ranging from manslaughter to murder depending on intent. This is closer to a proper analogy. In this case, you took an action which put a life in the balance. If you choose not to aid to keep them alive then depending on your intent, it could be involuntary manslaugher (pushing them into the water was an accident) or some range of murder if pushing them into the water was intentional.
In the case of abortion if gestational product (whatever it is called) is considered a rights bearing human entity then if the pregnancy was accidental, it would be a lower crime such as criminally negligent homicide. If it was due to rape, than the rapist should also be charged with felony murder rule. If the life of the mother is at risk to carry to term, justifiable homicide is appropriate. If the life of the fetus is at risk to carry to term, euthanasia would seem to be the appropriate term.
If the gestational product is not considered a rights bearing human entity, then removal of those cells should be no different under the law than the removal of any other organ.
I am a registered big L Libertarian and I went to the national convention in 2012. That being said I wasn't a delegate and just happened to be able to go for the weekend because it was in a city less than 2 hours away from me. The naked party chair was a bit of a weird aberration and isn't normal for even the Libertarians... I don't know if he was on drugs or thought it would be a Trump-esque move just to be shocking and get media attention. He is claiming now it was over a bet. Regardless, not a good move considering the public's perception of third parties in general.
That being said, if you live in a state that generally goes for one party, the electoral college makes your vote wasted anyway. You might as well get counted as not supporting the first past the post two-party monopoly that we currently have.
You have to realize at the convention, it is mostly hardcore libertarians that have the means and desire to go. There are far more libertarians that don't have the time, money, or motivation to attend a 3 day political convention.
I am far down the libertarian trail and I not only believe in tests for driver's licenses, but for more rigorous testing and renewal testing. Driving is a privilege and not a right. You want to drive on your own property, no license is required. If you drive on public roads, you have to meet minimum requirements to be allowed to do so.
Of course, on that issue, self-driving cars will make licenses obsolete in a generation...
The general libertarian ideal is that marriage not be recognized by the government at all. The practical policy decision is that until marriage laws can be removed from the books, they should be applied to all consenting adults equally. This is what is codified in the Libertarian Party platform: https://www.lp.org/platform
Arguing that libertarian beliefs are all based on contracts is a poor way to go about the abortion debate. Based on that line of reasoning, parents can "abort" their children until they turn 18. Even if you allowed for a non-legally binding contract of minors, you've moved the abortion line back to where a child can reason enough to make any implied contract with their parents. What compensation does a child offer to bring to the table in a parenting contract?
Taking care of a child is not something that is based on a contract, it's based on the societal obligation to take care of those that cannot care for themselves. How much care is required by law is based on intrinsic human rights, not contracts. Thus we come back to the real argument of abortion, at what point in gestation does an entity acquire rights? It's not an obvious answer from a religious, scientific, or any other basis. Thus I can support libertarians with varying beliefs on it.
From a policy perspective, I think it must remain legal. Even if you believe that a fetus has rights, if you accept that not everyone else believes that, you cannot use the rule of law to force your beliefs on others. I realize this isn't a perfect argument either (it could be used to allow slavery as well). In the interim, the government should definitely get out of restricting access to and education about contraceptive methods. If women (and men) are informed and have access to prevent conceptions they do not want, it will greatly reduce the demand for abortions.
Someday science may make it possible to have perfect and inexpensive contraception that religion accepts and the means of growing a child outside of a womb and we won't have to worry about it anymore except in medical cases.
Abortion is a topic which is definitely not resolved within libertarians. It does indeed hinge on the point at which a human exists and has rights. Until we settle that as a society, I can accept "pro life" and "pro choice" views within the party. Myself, I view abortion as a less bad alternative to banning it. Abortions will happen even if it is illegal. The effects of an abortion ban are worse than the reality of legalized, but restricted abortions. From an idealistic perspective, yes abortion shouldn't be allowed. From a realistic view, it's something that people who are desperate will obtain and thus needs to be regulated, but allowed.
Umm, I'm pretty sure the list of most popular libertarians on the planet doesn't include that guy I've never heard of because I AM A LIBERTARIAN. After doing a google search for him, he seems like much more of an anarchist than a libertarian. Also, he's not even an American, so throwing him into a discussion on American politics is a bit of a non-sequitur...
Speaking of non-libertarians, I'm pretty sure they've heard of some famous people who identify themselves as libertarians including:
Penn and Teller (both of them)
Drew Carey
Kurt Russell
Andrew Napolitano
Trey Parker
John Stossel
How exactly do you change the voting system by A) voting for either of the two parties which the current voting system benefits or B) not voting? Or is there another non-third party voting option that will magically bring change to the current broken political process?
So how is Gary Johnson not a competitive candidate but Austin Petersen is? A former governor who won a general election and then a re-election and then went on to get a record number of general election presidential votes in 2012 vs a guy who owns a website and isn't even notable enough to have his own wikipedia page.
If Gary got 1% of the vote between a moderate republican and an incumbent president, imagine what he can do against the two most reviled candidates in modern times?
Until they check that box off for reinforced concrete, NO DEAL. I mean I am a civil engineer and demand my reinforced concrete dammit!
And robots cannot spit in your food and are a lot easier to disinfect. Expect food safety to improve by another leap and bound when robots replace humans in food preparation.
Either a position is automatable, or it is not,
It is automatable now, or it is not yet automatable. There is no reason to believe that any job is safe from robots/computers in the long run.
You lost me with the cutting funding for social programs keeps people in poverty. Spending on social programs is highly correlated with keeping people in poverty. I understand now why you don't think public debt is a problem because we can print money... You don't understand economics. If you subsidize something you get more of it. Social programs subsidize being in poverty. Is it any wonder the more we pay for welfare, the less likely people are to get off of welfare?
If you live in America, I'd be more worried about debt and the current political clusterfuck than any emissions from burning fossil fuels... Those are much more likely to affect the quality of life for your children and grandchildren than any small changes in average global temperature.
Yes, because the government would never intentionally release radioactive material on an unsuspecting public as a test of the effects of fallout...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Right, because non-autonomous cars today are completely safe from Russian attack right?
Seriously this. People are always coming up with rare occurrences where a computer might fail when humans fail at driving in huge numbers across the country on a minutely (is that a word?) basis. Dear lord, I drive in Atlanta traffic and if a self driving car can use a blinker, stay in their lane, and navigate a roundabout it is already leagues ahead of meatbag drivers.
Eh, Sabine was a good choice for a car host. Not really the most British though... But yeah, I see the new hosts being a flop.
Yes, GWB has a presidential library. It is located in Dallas.
I loved Battlefield 1942 and things just went downhill from there. The original was simple, fun, and well balanced. WW2 is a great setting for these games because the weaponry is limited and crude. When you have an automatic weapon with 20 rounds and fires inaccurately as all hell while running it takes some actual skill to use it effectively. Modern weapons all fire much faster and more accurately.
The other reason to hate on the new games is all the "upgrades" that you can buy and special bonuses. In BF1942 you had 5 loadouts you could choose and they were all equal minus some variation in the factions (that were still well balanced). Everyone had equal access to the same vehicles. Log into a modern game now and Timmy who bought all the best shit can mow down waves of people and then call in an airstrike while you who just started playing is defending yourself with a staple gun.
It is. Most retail stations make more on pop, coffee, and hot dogs than they do on gas.
I'm nearing 30 and weigh 135ish lbs. I've always been skinny and it isn't because I have a good diet. I eat all kinds of foods that I've been told will get me fat or give me diabetes. I'm sitting here next to a bag of pork rinds and mini donuts at the office... The difference for me is I've never really eaten large portions of food. I eat kids meal sized portions and can almost never eat an entire plate of food at a restaurant. I just get hungry quickly...
I've also jokingly referred to my diet as the caffeine diet. You drink enough caffeine and your body will burn off any calories you take in! It probably at least counters the Mountain Dew addiction right?
I get where you are coming from and it SOUNDS good. But the burden of proof for all of these tax benefits for oil companies is on the people making the claim on these trillions. The IMF link you cite certainly gives data for huge subsidies, but they count global warming, air pollution, and other externalities as "subsidies." And not only do they count it, but based on the graphs, it's the lion's share of their trillions estimates.
Most of this arises from countries setting energy taxes below levels that fully reflect the environmental damage associated with energy consumption.
Based on that logic doctors get tax subsidies for making medical mistakes that kill people if they don't get sued for it. You can't realistically count estimates of global or local damages as a tax subsidy or the words tax and subsidy have no meaning anymore. Going into the actual data for the USA from the IMF citation provided, the actual pre-tax subsidies totals $10.94 billion. The remainder is global warming (185 billion), air pollution (180 billion), congestion (120 billion), accidents (48 billion), road damage (8 billion) and forgone consumption tax revenue (52 billion). So yes, they are actually counting road accidents as a subsidy and even worse, ROAD DAMAGE which fuel tax pay for maintenance of whereas ELECTRIC CARS DO NOT. If anything road damage "subsidies" should be negative as carbon fuel taxes pay for road maintenance.
So back to the $11 billion of direct tax subsidies. In 2015 according to the EIA https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs... the USA consumed 7.08 billion barrels of petroleum products. Ignoring the fact that a barrel of oil yields more than a barrel of products and ignoring all other fossil fuel energy sources (natural gas and coal primarily), that amounts to a tax subsidy of 3.7c per gallon of fuel (42 gallons per barrel). Are we really claiming that the huge tax subsidies oil companies get is that extreme vs the federal fuel taxes of 18.4c per gallon of gasoline or 24.4 for diesel?