I voted for Badnarik, and proudly, and I voted straight Libertarian ticket and even ran for office myself
But we really must stop blaming our poor results on the lack of instant runoff voting. Don't underestimate the stupidity of Joe Voter. You think people would seriously vote Libertarian if they saw a chance? Get out in the street and talk to people. We have very good name recognition (I heard a recent poll saying in the 90% range) but most people don't know our platform, and those that do most don't agree with it.
The fight is a lot harder than simply changing the election system. We'd implement IR and wake up the next morning to see the same results. What are we going to blame our measly results on then?
Does it sound like I have the post-election blues?
I don't know if it would be in the short term good or not, but I think that all states should at least do a statistical sampling of all provisional votes since I understand that they are often never counted or processed if they have not statistical chance of influencing the election. Having historial data, however, would make it easier in the future to figure their proposed impact.
All ballots have to be counted, and they are. Remember that ballots have other results besides presidential races, and some of these might be close enough to make a difference. I assume since they are counting these ballots anyway, they keep the tally of the presidential race as well.
A tie might mean that Congress would decide (no ties allowed in the election). Especially interesting since I think that it is the *outgoing* Congress, so Kerry and Edwards (and possibly Cheney) might conceivably get to vote. Or there could be other tiebreakers (maybe it would go back the home game before that).
RTFC (Read the F Constitution).
In the case of no candidate winning a mayority of the votes (and a plurality doesn't count) the NEW house gets to choose the president and the NEW senate gets to choose the VP. I'm not sure if Kerry or Edwards get a vote, or what would happen if the vote gets tied in the senate again (since normally the VP casts the deciding votes). But it is possible that we could end up with a Bush/Edwards presidency.
I don't remember where I had heard that the Internet was born on 9/1/1969, now I find it was 10/29? what's up?
Why do I care? Because I was born on precisely that date, and it's always been cool to say that the Internet is exactly as old as I am.
If you want your third party to be taken seriously, win local races, then some state ones. After you have done that, then start looking to national positions. Doing anything else is a waste of everyone's time.
Perhaps, but the presidential ticket is a great boon to the party. In the case of the Libertarian Party, the presidential candidate gives a measure of media attention to smaller candidates wherever he goes, he rallies the libertarian troops, and in races where no other libertarian candidate is running people at least get to see ONE libertarian on the ballot, thus keeping the name of the party slightly alive.
Though I might agree that small parties have to *focus* on winning winable races, we can't afford to forgo the big prizes, and who knows, there may come a point when two well placed scandals, or a chance at the debates might actually give our candidate a chance. Like I've heard it said: voting for the Libertarian Party is like buying a lottery ticket, your chances of winnning are very small, but should you hit the jackpot your life would be changed forever.
Where is the libertarian candidate? I believe LP has a far bigger presence than most people think. On this forum alone, I have seen a lot of libertarians.
Precisely for that reason, Badnarik was interviewed by slashdot directly, and anwsered so.
I agree with you. But THEORETICALLY, anyone who has a chance of getting one electoral vote CAN be elected, if anyone fails to get a majority of electoral votes, the vote goes to house of reps, who may decide to choose any of the possible candidates.
3. They'll be ordered to pay $$$ to the Libertarian party. The LP doesn't want that, they want in the debate, but that won't be offered.
No, they won't, they would look really silly and be and admitance of guilt.
Wasted vote? What wasted vote. I live (and vote) in California. California will most definitely go to Kerry. No argument you can give me can persuade me that a vote for Badnarik is more wasted than a vote for any of the two major party jokers. At least I take a stand and don't have to take a shower to feel clean after droping my ballot in the box.
I urge others in "safe" states to think about this. But I also urge those in "contested" states to think about it, their votes can REALLY make a difference there and bring attention to the third parties.
Finally, a post that lets me quickly figure out who to put on my friends list, a post that has every Libertarian on slashdot saying something. Well, I was left (for a change) with nothing else to say, but at least I wanted my name attached to this post.
Of course, and others have made the argument that it is also useful for the purposes of ballot access (some states give "major party status" to any party that gets more than a certain percent on a federal or state election) but my point was that we don't do it for the matching funds.
Good question. If I remember correctly, Harry Browne cheerfully endorsed SDI both in 1996 and 2000, provided it can be made to work, it is a much better use of time/money/people than other methods of defense. The argument has watered down since we lost the excuse of other super powers pointing missiles at us, I don't know what Badnarik thinks about this one, but considering other things we spend our money on, it's a good investment to at least investigate the usefulness of such a system. If we reduced our military to the protection of our country we would have enough left over to fully explore this and other methods of genuine defense.
Is this not holding the Libertarian party and candidate(s) to a higher ideal than the rest of the US political scene?
Yes, of course. I hold Libertarian party candidates to a higher standard than those of the duopoly.
I think the rise to the current levels of socialism didn't require an implementation plan because it didn't happen by design as much as by default. Those opposed to socialism (and other forms of statism currently shown by our government) didn't fight hard enough, and in many instances didn't even know they were fighting. I'm just re-reading Ayn Rand's "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal" and she makes this point extremely well.
Us Libertarians, on the other hand, consciously understand that we want not only to affect policy, but to achieve electoral victories to effect our desired changes. I think it important that we understand all of the implications (and side-effects) of our changes before (or at the very least while) we are making them.
In my case, if elected, day one I'll put together a team to establish a well thought out Transition Tree.
P.S. I've put you on my friend's list on the strength of your signature alone.
Remember that President is a federal office, there's only so much a President can do to effect Libertarian policy at the states. One would hope that on day-one federal funds to public education would get eliminated. The states individually and independently would have to figure out what to do, I bet that the majority of them (unless they had Libertarian governments themselves) would just past the cost to the consumer and increase state taxes. This would be an improvement to the situation, as less money would be spent on transferring the money from your pocket book to your local classroom through D.C.
As to how to accomplish the conversion from public schools to private schools: ask a state candidate! ElectLeibman.com
Any question about reforming the Electoral College is academic and (mostly) a waste of time. The Electoral College was put in place to distribute the power so that large population centers would have less of a say than a pure democracy would give them, giving individual non-populous states more power than they would otherwise have. The same system ensures that any change requires a huge number of states to change. States are not likely to pass an ammendment changing the Electoral College, so stop arguing this, it's a waste of time.
Now, at the local and state-legistature level, the question of other types of elective systems is much more interesting, as real change would not be as hard.
Michael,
Please add my voice to those around here asking the question:
What is the implementation plan?
This is one of the most often asked questions I get as a Libertarian. Many people who are already convinced by our positions stop short of supporting us because though they can see where we want to go, they can't see how we're going to get there once we are in elected positions.
What is the transition plan? What short term side effects do you expect when enacting the Libertarian agenda? how will you prevent, diminish or react to those.
I've often said that I will not vote for a Libertarian candidate that actually has a chance of winning... unless I know what the transition plan is. In my view, the worse thing for the Libertarian movement would be to be elected and be unprepared for the position. The question is not only "are you Libertarian enough to represent me?" but also "do you have a good enough plan, and are you professionally qualified (management experience, for example) to be a good official".
I don't think anyone is fixated on winning the Presidency yet. Running a candidate for presidency is very important: it gives you national coverage, and it gives many local candidates local coverage when the Presidential candidate is in town. It sets the stage for future campaigns. It may seem an unfocused strategy, but you would be mistaken in thinking that the LP is monolithic in its approach. I'm running for State Senate, it cost me nearly nothing (but time) to do so, at every level other Libertarians do the same, the result seems unfocused, but in reality it isn't, it's just focused in a distributed way.
You are right, every election there's a few local or federal legislative candidates that have a realistic chance, the party also supports them (as exemplified by the constant fundraising letters I get). To date even this has not been enough to make any inroads. Things get much worse every time redistricting takes place and each district is made safer (using computers even!) for the incumbent parties.
It's not just that. There's a general libertarian idea that if the U.S. kept a strong internal defense and stopped intervening in every other country in the world (as requested by G. Washington in his farewell address) we wouldn't have made enemies willing to smash their heads against our buildings. Kind of like blaming someone flashing gold watches in the wrong part of town and then getting mugged: yeah, I can't morally blame the victim for the crime, but practically there's some responsibility.
I asked Michael exactly this question at a recent fundraiser. He mentioned that his team was working on an implementation plan. I've yet to see anything similar.
I'll vote for him of course, but I don't know if I would if he had an actual chance of winning... once an actual chance of winning is presented, I really have to start thinking about things such as management experience, what team he is likely to put together and of course propossed timeline and process to change the government into a nicely running Libertarian ideal.
I've often argued with other libertarians about the practicality of things like freeing all non-violent drug offenders on day one and the impact such major are likely to have on society, most consider it a test of purity and dismiss my question (what? you'd leave all these innocent people in jail!?!) but in reality, implementing things wrongly could end up hurting "Libertopia" as the negative side-effects of a wrongly applied implementation caused people to backlash and never give us another chance.
Slashdot Mirror
Does anyone know why the Fedora 2 apt repository (fedora.us) still has 6.0? No recent release is even in unstable or testing.
Technically you're wrong. America is not a nation of idiots, it is a nation of Morons. A nation of idiots would have voted for Kerry.
-- A disgruntled Libertarian
I voted for Badnarik, and proudly, and I voted straight Libertarian ticket and even ran for office myself
But we really must stop blaming our poor results on the lack of instant runoff voting. Don't underestimate the stupidity of Joe Voter. You think people would seriously vote Libertarian if they saw a chance? Get out in the street and talk to people. We have very good name recognition (I heard a recent poll saying in the 90% range) but most people don't know our platform, and those that do most don't agree with it.
The fight is a lot harder than simply changing the election system. We'd implement IR and wake up the next morning to see the same results. What are we going to blame our measly results on then?
Does it sound like I have the post-election blues?
I don't know if it would be in the short term good or not, but I think that all states should at least do a statistical sampling of all provisional votes since I understand that they are often never counted or processed if they have not statistical chance of influencing the election. Having historial data, however, would make it easier in the future to figure their proposed impact.
All ballots have to be counted, and they are. Remember that ballots have other results besides presidential races, and some of these might be close enough to make a difference. I assume since they are counting these ballots anyway, they keep the tally of the presidential race as well.
I'm non american, so can I leave the planet now? The moon is looking mighty good right now.
The moon is a harsh mistress
A tie might mean that Congress would decide (no ties allowed in the election). Especially interesting since I think that it is the *outgoing* Congress, so Kerry and Edwards (and possibly Cheney) might conceivably get to vote. Or there could be other tiebreakers (maybe it would go back the home game before that).
RTFC (Read the F Constitution). In the case of no candidate winning a mayority of the votes (and a plurality doesn't count) the NEW house gets to choose the president and the NEW senate gets to choose the VP. I'm not sure if Kerry or Edwards get a vote, or what would happen if the vote gets tied in the senate again (since normally the VP casts the deciding votes). But it is possible that we could end up with a Bush/Edwards presidency.
I don't remember where I had heard that the Internet was born on 9/1/1969, now I find it was 10/29? what's up?
Why do I care? Because I was born on precisely that date, and it's always been cool to say that the Internet is exactly as old as I am.
People always talking about Left, Right, More Left, More Right.
Anyone tried Forward/Backward
Yes
If you want your third party to be taken seriously, win local races, then some state ones. After you have done that, then start looking to national positions. Doing anything else is a waste of everyone's time.
Perhaps, but the presidential ticket is a great boon to the party. In the case of the Libertarian Party, the presidential candidate gives a measure of media attention to smaller candidates wherever he goes, he rallies the libertarian troops, and in races where no other libertarian candidate is running people at least get to see ONE libertarian on the ballot, thus keeping the name of the party slightly alive.
Though I might agree that small parties have to *focus* on winning winable races, we can't afford to forgo the big prizes, and who knows, there may come a point when two well placed scandals, or a chance at the debates might actually give our candidate a chance. Like I've heard it said: voting for the Libertarian Party is like buying a lottery ticket, your chances of winnning are very small, but should you hit the jackpot your life would be changed forever.
Where is the libertarian candidate? I believe LP has a far bigger presence than most people think. On this forum alone, I have seen a lot of libertarians.
Precisely for that reason, Badnarik was interviewed by slashdot directly, and anwsered so.
Man, I read the title all wrong. Why would Russia be mocking the mars missing? What's funny about it?
I agree with you. But THEORETICALLY, anyone who has a chance of getting one electoral vote CAN be elected, if anyone fails to get a majority of electoral votes, the vote goes to house of reps, who may decide to choose any of the possible candidates.
3. They'll be ordered to pay $$$ to the Libertarian party. The LP doesn't want that, they want in the debate, but that won't be offered.
No, they won't, they would look really silly and be and admitance of guilt.
Wasted vote? What wasted vote. I live (and vote) in California. California will most definitely go to Kerry. No argument you can give me can persuade me that a vote for Badnarik is more wasted than a vote for any of the two major party jokers. At least I take a stand and don't have to take a shower to feel clean after droping my ballot in the box.
I urge others in "safe" states to think about this. But I also urge those in "contested" states to think about it, their votes can REALLY make a difference there and bring attention to the third parties.
Mi uzas la mia por konverti ne nur al IPv6 sed ankaux Brita Mezuroj Internacie, Rilata Datenaro al Objekta Datenaro kaj cxiu teksto Esperante
Vi ankaux?
Finally, a post that lets me quickly figure out who to put on my friends list, a post that has every Libertarian on slashdot saying something. Well, I was left (for a change) with nothing else to say, but at least I wanted my name attached to this post.
Another satisfied Libertarian voter
Of course, and others have made the argument that it is also useful for the purposes of ballot access (some states give "major party status" to any party that gets more than a certain percent on a federal or state election) but my point was that we don't do it for the matching funds.
Good question. If I remember correctly, Harry Browne cheerfully endorsed SDI both in 1996 and 2000, provided it can be made to work, it is a much better use of time/money/people than other methods of defense. The argument has watered down since we lost the excuse of other super powers pointing missiles at us, I don't know what Badnarik thinks about this one, but considering other things we spend our money on, it's a good investment to at least investigate the usefulness of such a system. If we reduced our military to the protection of our country we would have enough left over to fully explore this and other methods of genuine defense.
Is this not holding the Libertarian party and candidate(s) to a higher ideal than the rest of the US political scene?
Yes, of course. I hold Libertarian party candidates to a higher standard than those of the duopoly.
I think the rise to the current levels of socialism didn't require an implementation plan because it didn't happen by design as much as by default. Those opposed to socialism (and other forms of statism currently shown by our government) didn't fight hard enough, and in many instances didn't even know they were fighting. I'm just re-reading Ayn Rand's "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal" and she makes this point extremely well.
Us Libertarians, on the other hand, consciously understand that we want not only to affect policy, but to achieve electoral victories to effect our desired changes. I think it important that we understand all of the implications (and side-effects) of our changes before (or at the very least while) we are making them.
In my case, if elected, day one I'll put together a team to establish a well thought out Transition Tree.
P.S. I've put you on my friend's list on the strength of your signature alone.
Remember that President is a federal office, there's only so much a President can do to effect Libertarian policy at the states. One would hope that on day-one federal funds to public education would get eliminated. The states individually and independently would have to figure out what to do, I bet that the majority of them (unless they had Libertarian governments themselves) would just past the cost to the consumer and increase state taxes. This would be an improvement to the situation, as less money would be spent on transferring the money from your pocket book to your local classroom through D.C.
As to how to accomplish the conversion from public schools to private schools: ask a state candidate!
ElectLeibman.com
Any question about reforming the Electoral College is academic and (mostly) a waste of time. The Electoral College was put in place to distribute the power so that large population centers would have less of a say than a pure democracy would give them, giving individual non-populous states more power than they would otherwise have. The same system ensures that any change requires a huge number of states to change. States are not likely to pass an ammendment changing the Electoral College, so stop arguing this, it's a waste of time.
Now, at the local and state-legistature level, the question of other types of elective systems is much more interesting, as real change would not be as hard.
Michael,
Please add my voice to those around here asking the question:
What is the implementation plan?
This is one of the most often asked questions I get as a Libertarian. Many people who are already convinced by our positions stop short of supporting us because though they can see where we want to go, they can't see how we're going to get there once we are in elected positions.
What is the transition plan? What short term side effects do you expect when enacting the Libertarian agenda? how will you prevent, diminish or react to those.
I've often said that I will not vote for a Libertarian candidate that actually has a chance of winning... unless I know what the transition plan is. In my view, the worse thing for the Libertarian movement would be to be elected and be unprepared for the position. The question is not only "are you Libertarian enough to represent me?" but also "do you have a good enough plan, and are you professionally qualified (management experience, for example) to be a good official".
I don't think anyone is fixated on winning the Presidency yet. Running a candidate for presidency is very important: it gives you national coverage, and it gives many local candidates local coverage when the Presidential candidate is in town. It sets the stage for future campaigns. It may seem an unfocused strategy, but you would be mistaken in thinking that the LP is monolithic in its approach. I'm running for State Senate, it cost me nearly nothing (but time) to do so, at every level other Libertarians do the same, the result seems unfocused, but in reality it isn't, it's just focused in a distributed way.
You are right, every election there's a few local or federal legislative candidates that have a realistic chance, the party also supports them (as exemplified by the constant fundraising letters I get). To date even this has not been enough to make any inroads. Things get much worse every time redistricting takes place and each district is made safer (using computers even!) for the incumbent parties.
It's not just that. There's a general libertarian idea that if the U.S. kept a strong internal defense and stopped intervening in every other country in the world (as requested by G. Washington in his farewell address) we wouldn't have made enemies willing to smash their heads against our buildings. Kind of like blaming someone flashing gold watches in the wrong part of town and then getting mugged: yeah, I can't morally blame the victim for the crime, but practically there's some responsibility.
I asked Michael exactly this question at a recent fundraiser. He mentioned that his team was working on an implementation plan. I've yet to see anything similar.
I'll vote for him of course, but I don't know if I would if he had an actual chance of winning... once an actual chance of winning is presented, I really have to start thinking about things such as management experience, what team he is likely to put together and of course propossed timeline and process to change the government into a nicely running Libertarian ideal.
I've often argued with other libertarians about the practicality of things like freeing all non-violent drug offenders on day one and the impact such major are likely to have on society, most consider it a test of purity and dismiss my question (what? you'd leave all these innocent people in jail!?!) but in reality, implementing things wrongly could end up hurting "Libertopia" as the negative side-effects of a wrongly applied implementation caused people to backlash and never give us another chance.