Joshua Katz is chairman of the Connecticut Libertarian Party, alternate for the Libertarian National Committee region including New England, New York and New Jersey, and a local elected official in his town. He has published a number of essays at LewRockwell.com and comments frequently at IPR. He is currently exploring a run for the 2016 LP Presidential nomination. Here are the latest essays posted on the facebook page for that effort in reverse chronological order. I would have ideally published them as separate articles, but this will have to do for now.
November 5:
When I won office, as a Libertarian, election day fell on November 5. Today, it fell on November 4. Today is November 5. November 5 must always be our rallying day. Libertarian results come from libertarian actions – not apologetic attempts to hide our positions, and not crazy antics with no specific goals.
We, the Libertarian Party, have our role to play. It may not be the most exciting role in the liberty movement, but it is necessary. V did not hide his goals, nor did he pretend to be interested only in small changes. We do not find V talking about scaling back the practice of causing epidemics in order to allow for tyrannical takeovers, but eliminating it and rooting out its ill effects.
We must do the same – and we must do it in a way that actually gets results. When I ran for Planning Commissioner, I did not disguise the fact that I was a radical libertarian. I also did not simply run around saying libertarian things. I explained how my libertarian ideas translated into policy, and what that meant for our citizens. I let them know that I was the candidate who would protect them from corporate welfare. I did not allow myths about Republicans being free-marketeers to cloud our message of hope and prosperity for all. I did not declare Republicans “half-right.”
I took as my inspiration V – although I only metaphorically am burning down Parliament. I will burn down every law that harms society’s most vulnerable. I will burn down every regulation that saps our freedom, our desire to improve, and our ability to lift ourselves up. I will burn down every network of social control that pushes our citizens into wage-slavery, into cycles of debt, into corporate servitude. I have begun this work, and I will continue this work.
V didn’t do it on his own, though. Through his clear message and articulation of working policy, he inspired others. He brought out a coalition to achieve the actual policy goals. This is what our Presidential candidate must do. Our Presidential candidate must light the fire of freedom throughout this party and this land. They must use their press coverage, their resources, and their publicity to push the one way that actual change is brought about – a supportive network of local Libertarian officials who translate broad ideas into working policy.
We will have a free society when every Zoning Board across this country ceases to stand in the way of the poor improving their lot by starting a home business. We will have a free society when every small court ceases sending the poor to jail for driving without the ability to pay for a car registration – yet cannot work without driving. Even if the state continues to insist on these extortionate fees, with no local courts to enforce them the laws will wither. We will have a free society when no small town clears away a locally-owned business with eminent domain, then spends taxpayer money attracting a large corporation to move in. We will have a free, prosperous society when individuals are encouraged to lift themselves and improve their lot.
Join me, and join V, in pushing this view of freedom. Let’s make November 5 a day to recognize every local candidate, every local elected Libertarian, and every person who works for a local candidate. Let’s make it a day to encourage Libertarians to prepare now for odd-year municipal elections. Let’s give our candidate a network of local officials to build from. Let’s burn down every harmful law.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2006/03/joshua-katz/the-man-behind-the-mask/
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2006/04/joshua-katz/theory-and-action/
November 4
Johnson says that Rand [Paul] is right on half the issues. However, this buys into the myth that libertarians are ‘fiscal conservatives and social liberals.’ I am for free markets – not the Republican, mythologized version, but true free markets. The Republicans are not for free markets – they use the term to mean corporate privilege. They use the term to refer to a tax regime that, instead of lifting the onerous burden from our shoulders, shifts it instead onto the poor via a consumption tax. They shut down the government, shutting off social programs instantly, but only after assuring themselves that their pay and their wars will continue. Libertarians should give no legitimacy to this sham.
Libertarians need to focus our attention on underlying causes of inequality – the vast amounts of government-granted privilege, the network of laws making it harder for the poor to build themselves up or start small businesses using their own unused capacity, the war on drugs. No, Rand is not right on ‘half the issues’ since, time after time, he has tossed in his lot with the Republican Party and privilege, not freedom.
To see the difference, one need look no further than prison privatization – it is sheer corporate privilege to grant some companies the right to ‘customers’ who have no choice in the matter. Free markets do not include the market in human beings and their cages. Yet prison privatization is a popular conservative example of free markets operating more efficiently than government – even though the prisoners are delivered by government (along with guaranteed minimums!) and the companies are therefore not seeking earnings on the market by pleasing consumers, but seeking contracts by pleasing governments. I stand against prison privatization, and for massive reductions in prison populations by the elimination of unjust laws. What is New Mexico’s record on this?
Furthermore, we need to prioritize issues. There are more than numbers involved. If Johnson thinks that Rand is right half the time, we have a serious problem. He isn’t only wrong on social issues, he’s wrong on foreign policy – the most important issue of our time, and the one on which the President has the most direct impact.
While both Rand and Johnson/Gray took the right stance on domestic spying, Rand took a stronger stance. Both, though, favor punishing whistle blowers such as Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden. How one can be in favor of punishing whistle blowers while also opposed what they exposed is beyond me. It makes it harder to see, though, how exactly Johnson is a strong option to Rand.
I agree with Johnson that we need to present a strong alternative – not just be another option, but a winning option. I ask you what that alternative should look like.
I welcome Gary Johnson to the race. Our 2012 nominee is seeking our nomination again. I am eager to debate issues and tactics with the former Governor.
October 29
Friends of the Exploratory Committee:
By virtue of taking office, every President is instantly a war criminal. My task will be to correct this condition as quickly as possible. Even if I could do it in a day, though, I admit that I would remain indictable for crimes against humanity committed during that one day.
The military of the United States will be used for solely defensive purposes, once our international deployments are ended. I must caution supporters, though – this process will not be immediate. It will take time to end our foreign interventions without causing more harm. Certainly, the timetable I imagine is not the eternal one proposed by the current President. Within one year of taking office, all troops will be removed from foreign nations, with the exception of minimal security at embassies.
The first priority will be the removal of troops engaged in active combat, particularly in the Middle East and Afghanistan. Next will be troops on various ‘peacekeeping’ missions, followed finally by those in support and training roles.
Some will object that our troops are spreading democracy, fighting Ebola, and providing humanitarian relief. I would counter that our troops instead are fighting democracy and spreading Ebola.
Noam Chomsky was once placed on a commentary panel to discuss ‘humanitarian interventions in Haiti.’ He was to oppose the intervention; his debating partner was to speak in favor of the intervention. He eventually declined the invitation – he found the topic impossible to debate within. There was no humanitarian intervention in Haiti on the table. There was a self-interested attack on democracy and the livelihoods of Haitians, cynically described as ‘humanitarian,’ on the table. He would not have been allowed to argue this point.
This situation remains with us today. The United States government is incapable of humanitarian interventions due to being owned by corporations. Any intervention discussed is always self-interested, an act of expropriation, and a direct assault on those unlucky enough to be on the receiving end.
If the government were not owned by corporations – as will be the case by the end of my first term – perhaps we could have an intelligent discussion about humanitarian intervention. Since this will arise during my time in office, I will provide my answer now – no. Not even if it is truly in the “best interests” of the inhabitants will I authorize aggressive military action. No matter how well-intentioned, such actions will always lead to a worse outcome, not a better one. We are not the parents of the citizens of foreign nations; they must choose their own destiny. Paternalistic intervention must be opposed just as surely as must self-interested intervention. Additionally, the resources to engage in such actions will need to be expropriated from peaceful citizens, another act of aggression.
Most importantly, being happy and free does not mean living as Americans believe you should live. Again, I turn to the words of our greatest President (until 2016), John F. Kennedy:
What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek?
Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons
of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I
am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life
on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to
grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children–not
merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women–
not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.
We can go further, though, than simply negative action. Within my first 2 years, I will dismantle all of the intelligence apparatus with the exception of a restructured Naval Intelligence Service. Via Executive Order, domestic spying of all sorts will cease – and the leadership of all agencies involved will be removed and not replaced, pending elimination of their departments.
It may be objected that intelligence is necessary for protection. This is true only so long as the United States travels abroad, not in search of monsters, but in search of enemies – and, not finding any, creates them. We will cease creating monsters and enemies, and will not need any intelligence beyond a minimal core to alert us to immediate threats.
Law enforcement is not a legitimate activity of the federal government. The US Marshals Service will be retained as the enforcement arm of the courts. The FBI, ATF, and all other federal law enforcement agencies will be replaced with programs to provide coordination and support to local and state agencies, without uniformed federal officers. In addition, those charged with supervising these coordination and support programs will be charged with rooting out and eliminating abuses. No support will be provided to any state permitting civil forfeiture. All police-involved shootings will be investigated by the Justice Department, now freed from law enforcement duties. This department will be used to provide justice for our citizens, not to oppress them.
The Department of Homeland Security will be eliminated and replaced with nothing. The Secret Service will be discharged from their duty of protection of government officials. Officials, instead, will be warned to resist urges to act in ways that lead others to wish to kill them. The Secret Service will return to its role of protecting the currency from counterfeit, beginning with the arrest of key officials at the Federal Reserve.
The Department of Justice will also be busy investigating and prosecuting past war crimes, particularly by those in leadership positions. Immediate investigations of all living past Presidents and Vice Presidents will begin upon my taking office. In due course, all high-level executive and military officials will be investigated.
Let us turn now to the issue of the standing military. The National Guard will be returned to the sole jurisdiction of the Governor except that, with authorization from the Governor, they may be deployed in times of war. The standing military will be reduced to one the size of China’s. Ready reserves will be expanded in case of attack.
These are not pipe dreams. These are realistic policy options purposefully excluded from the current national debate by being mislabeled. They are idealistic – as our foreign policy must always be. I propose an idealistic foreign policy that treats foreign nations as friends and trading partners, recalling the words of Ludwig von Mises that “when goods do not cross borders, bullets will.” We will not treat the rest of the world as enemies in need of provokation, but as friends in need of support when it is sought. No longer will other nations need to regard us with suspicion, wondering where we will build our next sweatshop, our next McDonald’s, our next nuclear stockpile.
Speaking of which, I call for unilateral disarmament. This will discourage future administrations from returning to the errors of our past. Once the United States does not possess an unanswerable threat, it will be forced to deal on equal terms with its moral equals.
Please join me in ushering in a time of peace, happiness, and prosperity.
FSM bless you, and FSM bless America.
October 25 · Edited
Friends of the exploratory effort:
There is no such thing as a “Fair Tax.” If there were such a thing, it certainly would not be a regressive tax on consumption – a tax so regressive that its advocates find themselves needing to argue for policies to reverse its destructive impact.
Yet, if I run and am elected, it is my intent to be the chief executive of the United States government. That entity will need to continue, temporarily, providing the services it has been providing. Over the course of my administration, those services will be scaled back and markets allowed to take their place – but essential services need to be scaled back gradually, as the market is not equipped to immediately fill them.
How, then, to fund this massive, bloated entity? The only answer is to keep the least-bad taxes already on the books and eliminate the worst taxes, while rapidly cutting spending. Unlike Fair Tax proponents, I do not advocate revenue-neutral tax changes, nor do I advocate adding any new taxes, since we all know how that works out – we keep the new one, but we never get rid of the one it was supposed to replace.
The income tax is 47% of federal revenue. To eliminate the income tax, we must cut 47% of spending. Luckily, there are large swaths of money that does not fund necessary services, and is in fact destructive. Military expenditures are roughly 20% of the budget. If we had a military the size of China’s, we would spend $150B, compared to our current $711B. So, to go to a military the size of China’s, we can cut 3/4 of the military budget, and thus 15% of all spending.
We can do better than that, though. By ending all foreign interventions, eliminating the CIA, and relying on a far smaller intelligence community, we can eliminate roughly 19% of the federal budget. There is also “black money” spent on defense by back channels. Let’s estimate that cutting the military to solely defense will save 25% of the budget.
The War on Drugs accounts for $15B in annual spending, approximately 2%. We’re now at 27%.
6% of the budget is interest. If we did nothing else, the cuts above would significantly reduce this money. However, I advocate Ron Paul’s plan to have the Federal Reserve burn all T-bills it holds. I’ll call that a 5% reduction in annual spending. 32% done.
Transportation infrastructure is 3%, and education is 1%. Neither of these are necessary – highway funds are used to bully states, and to price poor people out of the market. Education spending serves to increase the cost of education, requiring people to take out student loans which are not discharged in bankruptcy. Cut that federal spending, and education will become more affordable. 36%.
Science and medical research pushes out private research and props up the IP regime. 38%.
Foreign aid is 1%. 39% done.
8% of the budget is retirement benefits for veterans and government workers. Let’s keep medical coverage for veterans and cut the rest, taking us down 4% to 42%. We still need 5%. We’ll take it from the 58% of the budget that goes to all safety net programs. I will not call for massive cuts to safety nets because the government has created so much inequality through various policies and privilege – we need to roll those back first. A less than 10% cut is doable, though.
October 20
Friends of the exploratory effort:
This morning, I spent 2 hours in Connecticut Superior Court. What I saw there reminded me, in a visceral way, of the importance of our fight. I saw uneducated, poor people punished for their every effort to keep afloat. I saw people who couldn’t afford to register a car or apply for a driver’s license, who drove anyway because it was the only way they could get work (thanks to zoning laws and highway funding,) threatened with jail. I saw the human fallout of the war on drugs – young people who were caught with small amounts of drugs, whose cases than escalated step by step until they owed hundreds in fines, or were sentenced to prison. I saw people convicted of forgery. Why had they forged documents? Because they were legitimately in pain, couldn’t get sufficient pain prescriptions, and checked into ERs under false names.
Perhaps worst of all, I saw in my heart that these things do not happen to the middle class or to the rich, who can do far worse and never suffer. It’s been said that for some, nothing good can ever happen, while for others, nothing bad can ever happen. This is absolutely true in the war on drugs and our judicial system. A rich person who needs pain medications gets them. The middle class can afford lawyers, never go to jail because they simply cannot pay a fine, never are denied the right to work because they can’t afford a license or insurance.
We Libertarians must never sacrifice the high ground. Too often, we let others get away with claiming that we do not care about the poor, that in a libertarian world, nothing will be done for the poor. We play into this when we recite our Ayn Rand catechisms and claim that the injustice of government is the taxing of the middle class and the rich to give unearned wealth to the poor. We are the party that will not punish the poor, that will allow the underclass to have true opportunities to succeed. We will not force them into dependency, we will not penalize them for not having money, we will not allow the loss of a job to lead to a prison sentence. The Libertarian way promotes greater equality; the big-government way leads to continuous roadblocks for the poor. We will not send a poor man to prison for what the rich get from their insurance-paid psychiatrist: relief from the banality of existence. We will bring about a world where drugs are less needed, where half of our society does not need anti-depressants, and where they are equally available to all, not illegal for those who suffer worst and legal for those who can afford a doctor.
Anti-depressants are needed in such high quantities at the moment, among other reasons, because our society is based on sitting in traffic in a metal box, sitting in a cubicle, coming home to sit in a living room staring at a box – and knowing that this will never lead to success because the only way to become rich is to trash the economy and be repaid for your efforts by government.
It’s not about libertarians not wanting to do for the poor. It’s about everyone else wanting to do TO the poor. We are the only political group that will allow the poor to rise out of poverty, and allow each individual to seek their most fulfilling life.
Our fight is urgent. What I saw today is repeated in every judicial district, in every state, every single day. The victims cannot be counted, the dead loss expenses cannot be imagined. To fight this, sacrifice will be required. We libertarians will need to sacrifice the purity of our philosophy in exchange for making true legislative and executive progress. We must govern in order to bring about a world where we will no longer need to do so.
Friends of the exploratory effort:
Please submit ideas for position pieces by commenting on this post. Responses will be posted here and submitted to IPR. They will be spread by other means when appropriate.
mc, I hear you, but I’d say they are humans who are living in poor conditions due to deeply dysfunctional institutions. Of course, as a lessarchist, I’d say all humanity is burdened by some dysfunctional institutions, though the range of dysfunction goes from NK’s to New Zealand’s setup.
That begs the larger question, are people in North Korea living as humans, or more like washed up race horses and retired beasts of burden?
dt: Then you’d be wrong. Mozart WAS, by all objective standards a “great” composer. However to say he was the “greatest” composer would NOT be a fact.
me: Hoo boy, dt, all due respect, are you going to tell us that Rachmaninoff was the “greatest”?
Sorry, but there are no “objective standards” for taste. If a person HATED all of Mozart’s works, he or she would not be “wrong.” (I happen to love Mozart, but I am not “right,” either.)
Many “experts” would say Mozart was great, too.
DT: Do you also believe that “life” is a good thing, but it’s NOT a fact?
Without liberty, human existence would not be possible.
me: Interesting question. If pressed to give a definitive answer, I’d say life is neutral. In fact, the material world is neutral. We give all things meaning. No meaning is inherent.
If human existence is not possible without liberty, then how do you explain North Korea?
…while I agree about the difficulties you mention, it wouldn’t follow that the ability to do the type of analysis I’m pointing to would make central planning work. This type of analysis has the benefit of hindsight, which central planning doesn’t.
Even with the benefit of hindsight, counterfactuals are still quite tricky. For example, with regard to the housing bubble, we can say with a high degree of confidence that the Fed’s monetary policies resulted in an excessive amount of capital being invested in real estate. However, we cannot predict with much confidence at all exactly where that capital would’ve been invested if the Fed had promulgated different monetary policies, or if there had never been a Fed in the first place.
Of course the rich make a lot of money from wars …Are you saying that the (quantifiable) monetary gains are greater than the (unquantifiable) decrease in safety they suffer?
Not necessarily. I’m simply pointing out that there is at least one way in which the rich clearly and demonstrably benefit from our foreign policy. On the other hand, I’m not at all convinced that either the poor or the middle class derive any benefit (tangible or not) from perpetual war.
RC> “I believe Mozart was a great composer, but I don’t believe it’s a fact.
Then you’d be wrong. Mozart WAS, by all objective standards a “great” composer. However to say he was the “greatest” composer would NOT be a fact.
RC> “I believe more liberty is a good thing, but it’s not a fact…
Do you also believe that “life” is a good thing, but it’s NOT a fact?
Without liberty, human existence would not be possible.
AC, looks like 7 basis point swings to me. Dust.
Robert Cap- a 300% swing is not “statistically insignifcant” either, regardless of if we’re talking parts per dozen or parts per million.
The stereotype “Republicans who smoke pot” means, at least as far as I can tell, supporters of plutocracy and oligarchy who also have a childish desire to do whatever pleasant things they feel like. Every part of this is wrong. The libertarian economic program is nothing like the Republican program, and our support for personal liberties has nothing to do with childish desires to have fun and smoke pot, it’s a matter of rights and ethics.
I was a lifelong Republican until Dubya. My family is Republican, anmd the company I work for is Republic. However. the GOP has stooped to such lows since 2012 that it’s important the media stops trying to portray us a close to Republicans.
We are not. We share a few issues with them, but we share just as many other issues with Democrats.
Yes we ARE different. Because we CHOOSE to be different. Were you born a Libertarian? I wasn’t, My first election was in 1964, I am proud to say that I voted for the Republican candidate, Barry Goldwater.
I am also proud to say that I was one a a few hundred Californians who wrote in the name John Hospers and Toni Nathan in 1972, and even prouder that Tonie and I became friends.
Ironically, the PRINCIPLE reason that the LP got off the ground was become a dastardly Republican named Roger McBride (who became known as a faithless elector) gave 1 electoral vote for Hospers and Nathan, making her the first woman and first jew to receive an electoral vote.
Do you suppose that when the LP nominated “ex-republican” Roger McBride for president the following election, that it made us “Republicans who smoke pot”??.
Dave, why do you have a problem with what George said?? We aren’t Republicans at all. We are Libertarian!
We’re different, and that’s what makes us better.
George Phillies; “Running a former Republican sends the message that we are Republicans who smoke pot, a message that is false and damages our long-term prospects.”
Every time I think you have scraped the bottom of the barrel, you come up with a new layer of nonsense!
ac: The difference between ~400k votes and ~1,276k votes is not insignificant.
me: “Significant” is different from “statistical significance.” I agree that more seems more helpful than less in assembling fellow challengers to the (imagined) cult of the omnipotent state.
From a big picture perspective, though, the rolls of cult-challengers has remained basically flat for decades, with minor perturbations when looked at through a microscope.
@Robert Capozzi
The difference between ~400k votes and ~1,276k votes is not insignificant. Particularly if the stated goal is supposed to be less about votes, and more about growing the party, in which case the Presidential vote total is one (among many) decent measures of the party’s base. Using their percentage results is just a way to account for increases in the total number of voters, since I was comparing them to each other and not competitors from the same year, but if we used raw vote totals the point would be the same.
jk: This type of analysis has the benefit of hindsight, which central planning doesn’t.
me: Interesting. Strikes me that central planners have all sorts of data they use to make their projections. The problem is they a) don’t have ENOUGH information and b) they don’t understand market dynamics, and they can’t predict them.
re: SD, don’t need to do the math. Measuring dust depth just obviously teaches us nothing.
Langa – maybe I forgot to mention that he knows he didn’t drop them near the light?
Anyway, while I agree about the difficulties you mention, it wouldn’t follow that the ability to do the type of analysis I’m pointing to would make central planning work. This type of analysis has the benefit of hindsight, which central planning doesn’t.
Of course the rich make a lot of money from wars – I thought that went without saying. I used to have Smedly Butler’s quote about that on my office wall. Are you saying that the (quantifiable) monetary gains are greater than the (unquantifiable) decrease in safety they suffer? If so, I’m glad.
RC – Good point, what are the standard deviations?
ac: there’s a clear trend that Presidential candidates with prior experience in elected office get about double the vote total, and one to two places higher, in the final count vs. candidates without prior elected experience.
me: Perhaps we learned statistics from different books. When the differences are tenths of a percentage points, there is no trend. All the results are statistically insignificant.
Insisting that we only work with what is quantifiable strikes me as somewhat akin to looking for your keys under the streetlight, instead of where you dropped them, because that’s where you can see more easily.
That’s probably not a bad strategy, if the alternative is to simply guess where they might be, or to walk around in the dark with a metal detector, hoping you’ll stumble across them.
Of course working with things that are harder to quantify, such as the impact of homebrewing regulations, is more speculative. Our minds are capable of such speculation, and of giving the reasons for our beliefs. Now, it doesn’t generate a knock-down case, as has been illustrated here, but that’s alright.
I think you (and many others, for that matter) significantly underestimate the difficulty involved in predicting what “would have happened” in a free market with no government intervention, and in calculating the impacts of such intervention. If free market outcomes and the effects of various types of intervention on those outcomes were really so simple to estimate, central planning would not have been such a dismal failure everywhere that it’s ever been tried.
Most of that goes to the rich (and if you only look for direct transfers, all of it does) but many middle-class jobs amount to shifting around paper that results from such things, selling products only feasible because of, say, the petrodollar, managing a Walmart…
Again, pure speculation. It’s entirely possible that a far less interventionist foreign policy would leave so much more capital available that more and better jobs would be created, which means that our foreign policy would be hurting the middle class. Then again, you might be right; all that capital might end up in the hands of the rich. We just don’t know, which is my point above.
Yes, the middle class, like all of us, suffer from the lack of safety delivered by our foreign adventures – but so do the rich.
Agreed, but as I alluded to (without specifically mentioning) above, some of the rich are quite well-compensated by their ties to the defense industry, and thus directly benefit from the wars.
Running a former Republican sends the message that we are Republicans who smoke pot, a message that is false and damages our long-term prospects.
In fact, we have had two races near 1%, two really bad races with campaign issues, and a bunch of races where we came in a tad under a half percent.
What we need are candidates who will use the Presidential campaign to work with libertarian political groups to build a stronger party. If I recall correctly, Badnarik was the last candidate to share his donation and volunteer list with state parties. Certainly, Massachusetts got nothing from the Johnson or Barr campaigns. That by itself should be viewed as a disqualifier for running Barr or Johnson again.
Dave, that’s a great example. The numbers presented by Cato are persuasive, yet not a slam-dunk. Cato doesn’t even claim it’s an argument that more guns=less crime, but rather a refutation of a different claim – and a good one at that. If offered as positive proof of the claim that less gun control would lead to less crime, the slowest of my statistics students could point out the problems. Yet it remains persuasive, and I happen to believe it is true.
As for whether or not running a past officeholder matters, it’s easy to look at past results in isolation, particularly Barr ’08, and call them disappointing. But let’s actually compare all the past Presidential nominees.
nominees with previous elected experience:
Johnson (Governor) 2012 – 0.99% 3rd
Barr (Congressman) 2008 – 0.40% 4th
Paul (Congressman) 1988 – 0.47% 3rd
Marrou (State Representative) 1992 – 0.28% 4th
average: 0.54% (0.62% without Marrou) average place: 3.5
nominees without previous elected experience:
Badnarik 2004 – 0.32% 4th
Browne 2000 – 0.36% 5th
Browne 1996 – 0.50% 5th
Bergland 1984 – 0.25% 3rd
Clark 1980 – 1.06% 4th
average: 0.486% (0.36% without Clark/Koch) average place: 4.2
Setting aside the first two presidential campaigns in 1972 and 1976, which had very limited ballot access, and the 1980 campaign which had a billionaire on the ticket for VP, there’s a clear trend that Presidential candidates with prior experience in elected office get about double the vote total, and one to two places higher, in the final count vs. candidates without prior elected experience. None of the delivered miracles, but they do tend to do better, and the strength even correlates strongly with how high an office they held (with Marrou, a mere state legislator, at the bottom). Only one non-billionaire-funded campaign- Browne 1996- did better than the two times we ran ex-Congressmen and both were lambasted for disappointing results.
Of course it’s true that were a lot of other factors in all of these campaigns that you could point to as affecting the outcome. I wouldn’t argue that their resume was the main factor in any of these results. But it’s not the slam-dunk “it doesn’t matter and has never worked” that we sometimes hear.
DT, you bring up a good point. You offer facts that on their face show there is no correlation between stricter gun control and less gun crime. It seems to imply the opposite > more guns, less crime.
However, facts are not truth, nor can facts dictate a normative pov. We don’t precisely know that concealed carry, or open carry, or other restrictions will necessarily lead to any particular outcome. We might want more data and to consider other factors (population density comes to mind), but even then we don’t know with certainty what the outcome would be in a particular jurisdiction.
Similarly, it’s a fact that some scientists believe that greenhouse gases are causing global climate change. Other scientists disagree. Sorting out one’s truth on so many issues is no easy task. Sometimes, “I don’t know for sure” is both fact and truth!
jk: To hold a belief is to believe it to be true, that is, to be a fact.
me: OK, then. I guess we use the word “fact” differently.
I believe Mozart was a great composer, but I don’t believe it’s a fact.
Some believe that Dave Kingman was a great hitter, but the fact is he struck out 1816 times (a fact), nearly one time per game. He hit 442 HRs (a fact), but I believe his SO/HR ratio is too high and his .236 lifetime avg too low to be considered a “great” hitter. One might INFER that if he had played 2 more seasons, he might well have hit 500+ lifetime HRs (he hit 35 in his last season) so it’s possible. Then again, maybe he wouldn’t have.
I believe more liberty is a good thing, but it’s not a fact…for me, and I’m going to be so bold as to suggest that my usage of the word “fact” standard and generally accepted.
Thanks for clearing up what you mean by “fact,” though.
JK: “But there are many cases where we argue for things that we have less than 100% foolproof data on. Less guns – more crime?
On the other hand; *
1. The 31 states that have “shall issue” laws allowing private citizens to carry concealed weapons have, on average, a 24 percent lower violent crime rate, a 19 percent lower murder rate and a 39 percent lower robbery rate than states that forbid concealed weapons. In fact, the nine states with the lowest violent crime rates are all right-to-carry states. Remarkably, guns are used for self-defense more than 2 million times a year, three to five times the estimated number of violent crimes committed with guns.
2.Lower murder rates in foreign countries prove that gun control works.
False. This is one of the favorite arguments of gun control proponents, and yet the facts show that there is simply no correlation between gun control laws and murder or suicide rates across a wide spectrum of nations and cultures. In Israel and Switzerland, for example, a license to possess guns is available on demand to every law-abiding adult, and guns are easily obtainable in both nations. Both countries also allow widespread carrying of concealed firearms, and yet, admits Dr. Arthur Kellerman, one of the foremost medical advocates of gun control, Switzerland and Israel “have rates of homicide that are low despite rates of home firearm ownership that are at least as high as those in the United States.” A comparison of crime rates within Europe reveals no correlation between access to guns and crime.
The basic premise of the gun control movement, that easy access to guns causes higher crime, is contradicted by the facts, by history and by reason. Let’s hope more people are catching on.
* CATO Institute
I agree Dave; lots of things get in the way of us being perfectly rational creatures (not that I’d want us to be.) Even if we have enough data to show that something is undeniable – say, rent control – we won’t convince everyone. But there are many cases where we argue for things that we have less than 100% foolproof data on. Less guns – more crime? I believe it, you probably believe it, there’s supportive evidence, but nothing foolproof.
RC>,”I think we agree. But it comes down to one word: Fact. I respect your belief, but it seems a simple matter to acknowledge that your BELIEF is not a FACT” “When it comes to policy, we will frequently convince some and not others – precisely because data is insufficient to make something the unquestionably right answer.
I would suggest that “insufficient data” is not the dominant factor; personal prejudice IS!
One believes what one believes, To hold a belief is to believe it to be true, that is, to be a fact.
JK, I think we agree. But it comes down to one word: Fact. I respect your belief, but it seems a simple matter to acknowledge that your BELIEF is not a FACT.
Remember: Utility is subjective. Ayn was confused! We always spend our time seeking our own utility maximization! Others don’t get to tell us how to do so!
It’s called drawing inferences from data. Not every conclusion a person ever comes to can be derived from an equation. People will disagree about the impacts of policies. We are humans, not machines. We form our beliefs in many ways, not only by acted as calculators on quantifiable variables. Not every argument will be a knock-down one. When it comes to policy, we will frequently convince some and not others – precisely because data is insufficient to make something the unquestionably right answer. I have beliefs. I have described them. I have described evidence that, to me, is satisfactory. You don’t find it satisfactory.
You want something undeniable? The time you have spent engaging in naval-gazing over my having the audacity to speculate on the impacts of policy could have been better spent actually doing something for freedom. So could the time I have spent on this argument once it became obviously pointless. Why don’t we both go do that?
jk: Our minds are capable of such speculation, and of giving the reasons for our beliefs. Now, it doesn’t generate a knock-down case, as has been illustrated here, but that’s alright.
me: How is it “all right”? I might agree with your belief, but I don’t kid myself that it’s a “fact.” Yes, our minds CAN INDEED engage in speculation, but I don’t kid myself that when I speculate I don’t believe it to be a fact. A fact is observable, speculations are not.
Insisting that we only work with what is quantifiable strikes me as somewhat akin to looking for your keys under the streetlight, instead of where you dropped them, because that’s where you can see more easily. Of course working with things that are harder to quantify, such as the impact of homebrewing regulations, is more speculative. Our minds are capable of such speculation, and of giving the reasons for our beliefs. Now, it doesn’t generate a knock-down case, as has been illustrated here, but that’s alright.
As for foreign policy specifically – our policies such as the petrodollar have resulted in tremendous amounts of wealth coming into this country while impoverishing other regions of the world. See John Perkins on this. Most of that goes to the rich (and if you only look for direct transfers, all of it does) but many middle-class jobs amount to shifting around paper that results from such things, selling products only feasible because of, say, the petrodollar, managing a Walmart… Yes, the middle class, like all of us, suffer from the lack of safety delivered by our foreign adventures – but so do the rich.
L: Direct transfers are the only things that are quantifiable. The rest is just speculation as to what things would be like without the enormous distorting effects of government intervention in the market.
ME: Well stated.
JK, take note.
I agree that the government tosses crumbs to the poor to prevent revolt, and does not toss crumbs to the middle class because the middle class will not revolt without them. This fact, though, doesn’t suggest to me that the middle class is hurt less than the poor. I am thinking of direct transfer of wealth, in any direction, as a rather small portion of what government does to oppress people.
Direct transfers are the only things that are quantifiable. The rest is just speculation as to what things would be like without the enormous distorting effects of government intervention in the market. While such speculation may be interesting fodder for conversation, it provides no basis for comparison with actual, concrete transfers of wealth.
I find your claim that foreign policy benefits the middle class to be particularly bizarre. War (which is what U.S. foreign policy has basically consisted of for at least the last 60 years) certainly benefits certain elements of the rich, but it almost certainly harms everyone else, by making us all far less safe. This leads us to spend tons of money and sacrifice virtually all of our freedom, in order to let the government “protect” us from threats for whose existence they are almost totally responsible. For the life of me, I can’t fathom how this vicious cycle possibly works to the benefit of the middle class.
But as for what can actually be measured, far more is taken from the middle class, and far less given back to them, than either of the other classes.
In any case, it just strikes me as quite odd to say that a group is hurt worse, all things considered, than another, because the first has more to lose from revolt – if they were treated worse, how did they wind up with more to lose?
By starting out with more to begin with, of course.
jk: Clearly, I think my points are persuasive – it’s why I believe what I say! If you don’t, I don’t see anything I’m going to add that’s going to be convincing, that’s all.
me: I’m convinced you BELIEVE what you say. No doubt.
But you evade my very simple question. Again, where is the “fact” that “Government intervention is the cause of massive inequality….” ?
Answering, in effect, “Rothbard said so” is still not a fact. Surely you get THAT!
“It’s probably true, issue by issue, that the Governor is more libertarian than many of our candidates.”
I think that Gary Johnson is less libertarian than the average Libertarian Party member. Most people I’ve spoken to (both in person and online) do not support the Fair Tax. Most of the people whom I’ve spoken to who voted for Gary Johnson at the National Convention voted for him in spite of the Fair Tax (as in they did not agree with him about the Fair Tax, but they thought that his other positives as a candidate outweighed the negative that is the Fair Tax).
RC – I don’t mind being challenged, I just literally have no further points than the ones I’ve offered on this topic. Clearly, I think my points are persuasive – it’s why I believe what I say! If you don’t, I don’t see anything I’m going to add that’s going to be convincing, that’s all. I don’t see the tweaks needed – if you wouldn’t mind specifying them, I’d appreciate it, as I’m always trying to hone my message.
AC – I’m not terribly interested in being ‘radical’ or being in the right section of the Nolan chart. It’s probably true, issue by issue, that the Governor is more libertarian than many of our candidates. There’s probably even a good argument to be made that prison privatization is libertarian. That’s why I’d rather focus on areas of agreement and disagreement than a libertarian pissing contest. I don’t claim to be more libertarian, I claim to disagree on specific issues that I think are important, vital even.
As for campaign organization – I take the view that campaigns should harness their visibility and resources to build a party organization behind them. This goal is complementary to, not contradictory to, running a serious campaign aimed at winning the election. It is necessary to have an organization in order to win. The question is – will that organization continue to exist, win or lose, after the election? If done through the party, I think it is more likely to last.
As for the financials, I assume you’ve seen them. If you’re satisfied with them, very well. But, as I said before – were the donors told “these donations are to pay my campaign manager for my last campaign” or were they told “these donations are for tv ads?” We know the answer, and we know that no tv ads were run, but the campaign manager was paid – quite well. I doubt Romney paid his any better.
Does saying I will not spend 50% of donations on a campaign manager mean I’ll run a smaller campaign? I don’t think so – I think it means I’ll have more money to spend on actually campaigning, not paying down debt from past campaigns or paying staff to do such things as read every email sent by every state director for approval or disapproval – because state directors are not trusted with actual contact lists, nor to write their own announcements. Again, not meant as an attack, but a legitimate disagreement on strategy. I understand the advantages of a centrally managed campaign outside of the party – Obama ran something similar. I am arguing for a decentralized campaign within the party. If I run, the delegates will consider this issue among others.
AC, might be true. But that might be viewed by those who challenge the cult of the omnipotent state as yet-another challenge for them to purge the leaky L-lights from the ranks, or certainly to stop non-cadre from running for office under the L line.
Gary Johnson is also probably both more libertarian on the issues, and loyal to the Libertarian Party, than many of the candidates we nominate (sometimes repeatedly) for Governor, US Senate, and Congress around the nation. If the problem is Libertarian candidates espousing un-Libertarian positions, there is plenty of soul-searching to do closer to home.
jk: Since your last comment amounts of “you’re wrong” any further comment from me would be a repetition and add nothing.
me: Actually, no, I have not said anything like “you’re wrong,” actually. What I AM saying is you have not established that it’s a “fact” that “Government intervention is the cause of massive inequality….” It might be a fact that theorists that you like theorized that that is the case, but that confuses theory with fact. I am open to it being an ACTUAL fact. I am also open to the theory. Thus far, you have avoided offering a fact, however…at least that I can see.
Personally, I appreciate when others correct me or help me see things from another perspective. It lines up nicely with a truly radical approach!
JK: ….but I’d point out that I made the left-libertarian case door to door throughout my district (and didn’t spend an hour on each door step) en route to winning the election, so I must have been doing something right.
me: Yes, congratulations. I’m sure you are. GJ won 2 elections for guv, but lost 1 prez bid. RP1 won many terms to Congress, too, (losing his first, iirc), although he lost 3 prez bids. My theory is that all politicians always do the best they can and can have always done better than they did. Actually, I’d say that holds in all endeavors.
I would also suggest that people at the very top of their game fall prey to arrogance and laziness, assuming that their past performance means that they need not make adjustments on their journey.
I happen to generally like the sentiment you express on this matter of income distribution, but it seems to need some tweaks.
Just a suggestion, really.
“I’ll focus more on building the party.” is what we always hear from inside-the-LP challengers for the nomination, but I think it’s a bit of a red herring. First, OAI is not a competitor to the LP. As we all well know, there are a lot of very stupid and 1st-Amendment-trampling laws that govern and restrict what a political party can or can not do in terms of issue advocacy, spending and receiving money, etc. Beyond that, there are many organizations that won’t work with parties even if they could, but will work with a nonpartisan group like OAI. OAI is no more of a competitor to the LP, than Cato or LvMI or Reason magazine. It exists to serve a different purpose, to pursue issue advocacy coalition projects with other organizations, something that was sorely needed by the Libertarian political community and can not be done as effectively by the LP alone. And in fact on a practical day-to-day level much of OAI’s work is joined at the hip with local/state LPs, including on things like ballot access.
More importantly though, the goal of a Presidential candidate is not to “build the party.” I’m sorry, but the goal of a Presidential candidate is to reach as many voters as possible and get as many of them as possible to vote Libertarian for President. That’s it. The Presidential campaign is not the LNC, it’s not the state affiliates, it’s not the local candidates, it’s not the living embodiment of the hopes and dreams and future of the entire Party. It’s the Presidential campaign .Candidates who forego campaigning for the office they’re actually running for, in favor of sprinting around the country with some fuzzy goal of having an impact on local party strength, typically don’t do very well by either criteria. The best, and really only, way a Presidential candidate can grow the LP, is to run as strong and viable a campaign for President as he or she can.
The fact that the campaign paid its staff, and uses prices to allocate scare resources (speaking engagements for a speaker whose requests far outnumber what he could realistically do), are two things that Libertarians in particular should understand. I’m not going to say every dollar was well-spent in 2012, and I think a lot of lessons were learned that Gary is fairly candid about, but the fact is from the outside that internal campaign spending always looks “wasted” because the results aren’t obvious. That doesn’t mean such internal spending isn’t necessary, and pledging not to engage in it is tantamount to a pledge that your campaign will never be as big as its predecessors/competitor (which is probably true for those who levy this criticism).
i don’t mind Johnson having to answer some sharp questions at the convention, but I think we in the LP and the delegates to Orlando should look at it as a matter of making our eventual nominee better, not as a matter of actually rejecting the only halfway-serious candidate that we have for the general election. The fact that on this issue or that issue he said something I might disagree with, hardly diminishes the fact that he would still easily place in the Libertarian quadrant of the Nolan Chart on any political test.
Without going into every specific, I outlined more problems with the 2012 campaign than just being preceded by a primary. But, if we choose to look at that one – were donors told that donations would be used to pay the campaign manager for a past campaign, or were they directly told that donations were needed to fund tv ads that never materialized?
Yes, Johnson has done a better job sticking with the LP than, say, Bob Barr. However, as I outlined before, we should expect a campaign to integrate with the LP and affiliates and build those – not to build a separate, parallel structure. Anything is better than walking away and leaving the party just as it was before, but best is building the actual organizational structure, which is what I propose to do during the campaign. I propose to work with the affiliates, not a separate organization paying large proportions of its donations out to the campaign manager. I propose to support local candidates, not condition appearances with those candidates on specific dollar amounts of donations.
Policy-wise, I’m not going to compare “radicalness” since I don’t think that’s the right framework. It’s not about how far you want to go, or how fast – there are real policy differences that the delegates need to decide about. Is prison privatization pragmatic and centralist, or is it a radical position? I’d consider it radical, just not in a good direction. I have no complaint about Johnson not being ‘radical’ enough, I have disagreements with him about specific policies.
You can, I suppose, say that my position that Chelsea Manning should not have been put on trial is more ‘radical,’ but it’s not like it’s an exclusively libertarian position – and it’s quite frustrating to me to see our standard bearer take a position on this significantly less libertarian than much of the non-establishment left has taken.
In any case, you don’t expect Johnson to be unchallenged. So either I will challenge him or, as I’ve indicated, I’ll stand aside if someone who I consider better than me comes along. So what’s the issue exactly?
Langa – I am having trouble following your arguments. Certainly, I agree that the government tosses crumbs to the poor to prevent revolt, and does not toss crumbs to the middle class because the middle class will not revolt without them. This fact, though, doesn’t suggest to me that the middle class is hurt less than the poor. I am thinking of direct transfer of wealth, in any direction, as a rather small portion of what government does to oppress people. Zoning regulations, health codes, and the costs created by the state to driving (while constructing interstates and encouraging sprawl) all hurt the poor and have little immediate impact on the middle class. Foreign policy has largely benefited the middle class at the expense of the rest of the world, benefited the rich a lot more, and hurt the poor.
As an aside, there actually have been middle-class revolts, but we lack social context to see them as such. When they occur, we just refer to them as someone ‘snapping’ or ‘going postal.’ Similarly, there are no contemporary reports from the antebellum south of slave revolts, just of slaves acting very ungrateful to their masters by killing them, or acting in irrational ways by taking weapons and giving them to other slaves.
In any case, it just strikes me as quite odd to say that a group is hurt worse, all things considered, than another, because the first has more to lose from revolt – if they were treated worse, how did they wind up with more to lose?
RC – You’ve made your points, I’ve made mine. Since your last comment amounts of “you’re wrong” any further comment from me would be a repetition and add nothing. I appreciate your concern about my presentations in the public square, but I’d point out that I made the left-libertarian case door to door throughout my district (and didn’t spend an hour on each door step) en route to winning the election, so I must have been doing something right.
JK> ” Dave, there’s no reason to limit ourselves to those choices. When government does not choose winners and losers, you get greater prosperity, not less.”
Josh, I wasn’t suggesting that those were our only two choices. I was merely demonstrating that “equality” is NOT the proper measure of a political principle. If I may say so, your last sentence makes the point better than I did; ie. “winners and loser” = inequality = prosperity.
There are many, many ways we could look at who subsidizes whom via the State. The childless generally subsidize parents. The middle-aged subsidize seniors. The unconnected wealthy subsidize the wealthy who are connected politically. The rest of the country subsidizes greater DC. etc. etc.
It’d be great if there was an effective LM who could propose a path out of this mess. I agree with JK that the contemptuous Randian approach has not worked. Personally, I like to see an element of bleeding heart L-ism, if for no other reason that the least well off have a smaller margin of error, and increased suffering doesn’t seem conducive to a peaceful state of affairs.
This attempt by JK, though, doesn’t work, as it is not true.
Try again.
There’s middle class entitlements.
I can’t think of an example of an entitlement program that only benefits the middle class, unlike corporate welfare (which only benefits the rich) or “normal” welfare (which only benefits the poor).
And then there’s the massive corporate welfare (both obvious and hidden) to the rich.
Yes, but that benefits the rich (primarily at the expense of the middle class).
It’s a case of what is seen and what isn’t. What government “gives” the poor is more immediately visible to them than the much larger opportunities it takes away, and the things that it immediately visibly takes away are more likely to be seen as inevitable.
Exactly, which is why I referred to it as an attempt to “trick” the poor into not revolting.
“The middle class, on the other hand, get nothing back,”
There’s middle class entitlements.
And then there’s the massive corporate welfare (both obvious and hidden) to the rich.
” The poor, on the other hand, without all of that bribe money, might very well revolt.”
It’s a case of what is seen and what isn’t. What government “gives” the poor is more immediately visible to them than the much larger opportunities it takes away, and the things that it immediately visibly takes away are more likely to be seen as inevitable.
The poor have the most to gain from freedom, and the most to lose from statism.
While I agree that the existence of government, on balance, hurts the poor, I disagree that they are hurt the most. Government robs from the poor and the middle class, and gives to the rich. However, it also gives a little back to the poor, not out of any sense of benevolence, but rather, to trick the poor into not revolting. The middle class, on the other hand, get nothing back, as the government trusts that they will not revolt, because they have “too much to lose” by rocking the boat. The poor, on the other hand, without all of that bribe money, might very well revolt.
jk: No one can deny the position of Rothbard in American libertarianism, and he made these same arguments in Left and Right and in The Ethics of Liberty.
me: I definitively would not deny this. This position is cancerous IMO on the prospects for lessarchism. One need only read many copies of the L Forum, his infamous Leninist strategy memo, and his later works to see that this “great” influence had a pretty sick mind, prone to fits of grandiosity and rage.
jk: However, with the power of the free market unleased, everyone has the potential to benefit from the ability to innovate and act freely – which means that innovation drives wages up, not down. ..Yes, there are ways around this, but I’m talking general tendencies.
me: “General tendencies” is one thing. But I was feeding back on your initial statement: “Government intervention is the cause of massive inequality….”
If I gather what you are now saying, you are recognizing that that is a false overstatement. “Equality” in this context is a relative measure, so we just can’t know what a stateless free market might produce in terms of income distributions. The spreads might widen, or they might narrow. I’m on board with the concept that as the state’s relative take increases, overall wealth will be lower than otherwise would be, over time.
But making this case in the Public Square needs to be made with care. Abolition of, say, Social Security tomorrow might lessen the State’s take, but it would likely also increase income inequality in the short to intermediate term.
Making specific, unqualified, and false pronouncements seems contra-indicated to me.
I don’t think Gary Johnson will be unchallenged for the nomination, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. And I don’t think past elected office is any guarantee of future results, it’s just one of many necessary-but-not-sufficient factors. Certainly a candidate with a good resume on paper can go down in flames for other reasons. I don’t think the fact that such a candidate doesn’t miraculously overperform the historical norm for the party is an indictment, and the main problem with GJ2012 campaign was that it was preceded by a disastrous and wasteful GOP primary run. That won’t be the case in 2016, and I think all things considered the delegates will re-nomination Johnson, in no small part due to his record of continuing to boost and promote the party after the election, which is something we don’t always get from our Presidential candidate, and the fact that he can still take the party’s message to a broader audience and wider exposure than anybody else seriously in contention for the nomination.
NOTA will not win the nomination. In all likelihood, Rand Paul’s hopes of winning the GOP nomination will be over or nearly over by the time of the ’16 LNC. And even if he won the Republican nomination or appears on track to do so, the diehard Libertarians who show up in Orlando will not press the self-destruct button on the LP and throw away ballot access in most of the country on Rand’s behalf, which is what nominating NOTA, cross-endorsing Paul, or any other such scheme would amount to in practice.
I appreciate that you’re somewhat realistic about this, and I don’t entirely disagree with some of your criticisms of Johnson, but I think re-nominating Johnson will result in at least double the vote total than any of the other small-time start-up campaign would be able to muster, assuming his debate challenge goes nowhere (which it probably won’t, but even on the debate front he’s got a better shot than anybody else.), just like I think it’s a reasonable assumption that we would have been in the 0.4% range, and not have placed in third place nationally, had we nominated Wrights or one of the other challengers in 2012. And who wants to come in fourth behind Jill Stein?
I’m certainly willing to make way for a genuinely better candidate, but I don’t see any such prospects on the horizon for 2016. On the issues, Johnson is pragmatic and centrist (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing) but acceptably libertarian so far as I’m concerned. I don’t think his failure is being insufficiently radical, anyway.
AC – perhaps you’re right. The thing is I’m not convinced a candidate of the sort you describe exists. You mention US House – but do we really need to review how 2008 went? There’s a reason I said earlier that I’m not going to make the case for myself over NOTA. I will make the case for myself over others who also lack the traits you mention. Or, at least, I might – remember that I haven’t even decided to seek the nomination yet.
However, even if I did run, I wouldn’t be throwing away a chance to run for another office. My term of office is 6 years. I will run for a higher office when that term is up, regardless, unless elected to a higher office in the meantime. A 2016 run for Mayor is not in the cards – largely because the current Mayor is a friend, a supporter, and campaign-buddy, and intends to run again. He does not plan to serve more than 1 more term, though. If I didn’t run in 2016, I wouldn’t run for anything.
But, if someone with the sort of experience you describe comes forward, and they can also make the case that they would effectively promote liberty in office, my decision will be made for me. I will happily stand aside. I don’t know that having written a book belongs on your list, though – all the other things you list demonstrate ability to govern, writing a book doesn’t.
The fact remains – I have more of a demonstrated ability to govern than most of our past candidates. This is not a great thing, but you go to war with the army you have. Bring in a better army and I’m out. Make a convincing case that NOTA can win, and I’m out. Don’t do either of those – I might be in or out, haven’t decided yet.
What is not appealing, though, is leaving unchallenged a past nominee who couldn’t break 1% despite being a Governor, and whose record in public office does not convince me that he can bring about change in a freedom-direction.
Mr. Katz seems like a likable enough fellow, who makes some decent points, and anybody who has managed to actually win a three-way election as a Libertarian is due some respect.
But the fact remains that nobody has ever heard of him, and running a member of a small-town planning board for President of the United States will rightly be perceived as a joke. That’s almost worse even than running somebody with zero elected experience, which is something which I think generally shouldn’t be done for President.
The LP needs as many strong candidates from many backgrounds for state legislature, state executive offices, and congress, and local officeholders who’ve won at that level go to the top of that list, but President is different. A candidate for President has to be able to do more than recite the talking points and look presentable if we want the top of the ticket to be taken seriously, and that means either some kind of track record in politics or some kind of famous endeavor (major CEO or other nationally-recognized figure) which brings its own fame (and funding). Throwing away the chance to elect a Libertarian mayor or state rep, on a vanity campaign for President seems like a waste.
The party has even tried running an elected-as-a-Libertarian state representative for President before, and the result was a nadir election for the LP. Unless you’ve been the executive of some kind of agency or business- government or private- with at least 1,000 employees, written a nationally best-selling book or been part of a media endeavor with an audience in at least the hundreds of thousands, or been elected to the level of at least US House or higher, then there is no reason anybody, least of all yourself, should be talking about you running for President. The American voters expect more in a Presidential candidate than just a good message, they expect some kind of resume, and understandably so.
short version: if you’re not already at least moderately famous before you run for President, you’re not going to be any less obscure two years later.
Dave, there’s no reason to limit ourselves to those choices. When government does not choose winners and losers, you get greater prosperity, not less.
RC – Actually, Bastiat and Proudon made exactly my point, and Rothbard made very similar points during his more “left” period – such as Left and Right: The Prospects for Liberty. See also The Ethics of Liberty and his argument that large-scale inequality is prima facie evidence of government distortion.
RE: “That’s not all we have to do.” If, on net, government action increases inequality, then getting government out of the economy will, on net, mean more equality. This is talking about one cause and one effect, which means it’s “all else equal.” So what can go wrong? I suppose the argument would have to go like this – in addition to increasing inequality, government intervention sharply decreases innovation and therefore the ability to rise. Thus, taking it away will remove the idea of taking from the poor and giving to the rich, but will also increase the “upper bound” which could, in principle, lead to greater inequality. However, that argument has a flaw – and, ironically enough, the flaw is contained in what you could call “standard issue libertarianism.” The flaw is that raising that upper limit, in the absence of government intervention to the contrary raises all ships, so to speak – the innovation unleashed does make the innovators richer, but also trickles down through more jobs, more wages, the general benefits of an unleashed economy. In the presence of statism, innovation doesn’t necessarily lead to increased overall standard of living, and hence can increase inequality, because there’s competition for jobs, not for workers, and workers have fewer options. However, with the power of the free market unleased, everyone has the potential to benefit from the ability to innovate and act freely – which means that innovation drives wages up, not down.
Yes, there are ways around this, but I’m talking general tendencies. What is undeniable is that government, on net, is a force for moving wealth in an upwards direction, hand-wringing about welfare and other secondary regulations to the contrary notwithstanding. Even if increased innovation could, possibly, lead to a stronger force towards inequality, that would be only monetary inequality. The fact would be that overall standard of living of the poor would still, because of the very innovation unleased, increase – and increase proportionally more than that of the rich.
As I suggested before, it’s not like I’m saying terribly new things. Libertarianism has, throughout its history, been seen as an equalizing force. Government intervention at the time of the industrial revolution was explicitly argued for in terms of traditional hierarchy – as in, those arguing for government intervention were concerned that the industrial revolution was, through greater opportunities, taking away inherited advantages and privilege. Libertarianism has always been about government-granted privilege and the resultant power structures. The idea that greater freedom leads to a more harmonious society only sounds strange because American libertarianism has been so heavily influenced by a novelist who used a rape scene to demonstrate moral virtue. But even in America, as I indicated above, we find these very ideas. No one can deny the position of Rothbard in American libertarianism, and he made these same arguments in Left and Right and in The Ethics of Liberty. Roderick Long is an American, as is Kevin Carson. I linked above to Roderick. He also, for those interested, has a week-long seminar series posted as Mises.org. In any case, it’s not like I’m suggesting some radically new concept of libertarianism – the concept of the libertarian as selfish and the poor as lazy is foreign to the libertarian tradition.
Granted, of course, none of this philosophy makes great fodder for a general election campaign. These arguments seem appropriate in this context, though, where I’m engaging, for the most part, with people interested in philosophical questions, not trying to convey our ideas in 30 second soundbites. My 30 second soundbites, of course, will sound different from those of our last few candidates who were heavily right-wing influenced.
otoh, massive inequality COULD be an indication of something being institutionally out-of-whack. Say for ex. major league baseball players are 20% more skilled than AAA players, but they make 200% more income. Maybe the economics of big-league baseball justify such a discrepancy. Then again maybe it’s a function IN PART of massive government intervention and institutional dysfunction.
Discerning the truth is no easy matter. Handwaiving doesn’t get it done, however, in my experience.
RC? ” There might be more inequality, as the more skilled can benefit more from a freer flow of goods and services.
Absolutely correct! This discussion on “equality”, is completely bogus and irrelevant (except for equality of rights)
Which society would you prefer?
a. 2% of residents have more than 3 bathrooms (the White House has 35)
. 8% ” ” ” ” ” 2 ”
2O% ” ” ” “. 1-1/2 ”
42 % ” ” ” ” 1 ”
23 % ” ” only 1 ”
4 % ” share a bathroom with other residences
1 % ” are homeless and have no bathroom services
OR
b. 100% of residents share EQUALLY the river next to their village or the bushes and the trees up the hill.
Which society has the greater degree of equality
jk: But we have every reason to suspect that inequality is greater today than it would be in a free market. All we need to do is look at actual government action. As I said earlier, there is a network of regulations preventing small businesses from being started and from succeeding. There is a school-prison pipeline that applies only to the poor. There are bailouts, there are subsidies, there are tariffs.
me: All due respect, but that’s not “all we need to do.” It’s true that government action does MANY things to prefer the politically connected. But it does not follow that in a free(r) market that income inequality would NECESSARILY narrow. It might, but it might not.
jk: I stand firmly in the historical libertarian legacy – that of Proudon, Molinari, Bastiat.
me: Great. I don’t recall any of them, nor the Austrians, making your specific point.
Paulie – completely agree that the general campaign will not be a time for discussing Proudon. The task will be, as you say, turning our ideas into soundbites that can actually be used during a campaign. I’m speaking here to an unusual crowd.
I don’t know ATM, and my Rand reference wasn’t to him specifically, just to the general flavor of vulgar libertarianism we see far too often, and which we need to combat.
It would be inaccurate to call Johnson a current Republican, but it is not inaccurate to call him a Republican Governor. He has never won a race against both a Republican and a Democrat. This isn’t a criticism, but it’s a fact. Yes, I was endorsed by the Republican town committee – but so was my Republican opponent, who was an incumbent. I beat a Democrat and a Republican incumbent while a registered Libertarian.
Calling himself a flaming liberal on civil liberties is different from, say, committing not to prosecute whistleblowers. But my main concern is on economics. Either he really believes the “fiscally conservative/socially liberal” line, or he’s willing to use it/let it be used as part of our identity.
The ACLU didn’t include me in their 2012 torch awards. If they had, I suspect I would have had more. Of course, I wasn’t running for office. But those awards were given out before he said he would have prosecuted Manning.
As for looks and experience – if we look just at experience, well, take a look at the last 2 cycles. If nominating someone with Gubernatorial and federal experience is the golden ticket, why did those elections go the way they did?
Regarding NOTA – I don’t agree. I am not going to present the case for myself over NOTA, even if NOTA is a contender, because I would far rather lose the race to NOTA than to a candidate who will not present our message as well as I would, regardless of who that candidate is. I’m not strongly opposed to NOTA, but my view on that nomination runs directly counter to most views – I would be far less satisfied with NOTA if Rand were the GOP nominee than if he weren’t. If Rand is nominated, and we select NOTA, I think the public will end up with the vulgar libertarian idea implanted in their heads, so to speak, far more than it is already – which is already too much. If the Republicans nominate someone who no one would mistake for a libertarian, and the Democrats do the same (practically assured at this point, given Gravel’s age, Dean’s sell-out, and Kucinich having been districted out of office) then it becomes less important to me that we have a nominee, not more.
For some reason I don’t think “ATM” is an Ayn Rand fan. For one thing she was Jewish, and for another she wasn’t big on preserving “tradition” and the “natural order” or the “common wisdom developed by trial and error over millenia.” Also, see ATM’s comments in the nazi thread for context.
I generally agree with Joshua about the reality that government action on balance skews things to the haves, not to the have-nots. I also agree about the importance of changing our rhetorical approach to reflect this. Joshua brings up a few of the many reasons why this is so.
Unfortunately, I tend to agree with the criticism regarding looks, experience and celebrity. Both LP delegates and especially the public at large will take these into account when selecting a presidential nominee and a president. Looks shouldn’t matter, but they do. Experience is a reasonable thing for people to consider when picking someone for any type of job, especially one with a lot of responsibility, although it’s true that nothing really prepares someone to be president of the US. It’s not likely that most LP convention delegates will have the ideological sophistication to be aware of the finer points of ideology being discussed here, although some certainly will. It’s even less likely that a sufficient portion of the general public would understand such issues or could be reached and persuaded by a Libertarian candidate without a lot of money, celebrity and/or high level executive experience (or most likely all of these) during the short course of time that most people pay attention to the soundbites and dumbed down commentary and ads surrounding a presidential election. Furthermore we have to overcome ingrained voting habits built over decades; most people are creatures of habit who pay relatively little attention to politics, much less political philosophy. They are more likely to judge candidates on their teeth and hair than to have the slightest clue or give a rat’s ass who Proudhon, Molinari and Bastiat were.
However, I certainly do hope to hear such issues debated in the run for the nomination as much as possible. And I hope the eventual campaign will find compelling ways to translate them into soundbites, 15 and 30 second ads, and short answers to debate and media interview questions.
I think any prospective candidate for the LP nomination needs to be able to make a case for him or herself against NOTA, in addition to the case he or she makes against the other contenders for the nomination and the likely nominees of other parties. NOTA may well be a real contender this time around, especially if Rand Paul has any real shot at the Republican nomination but even if he doesn’t – remember the legions of devoted fanatical Ron Paul fans that continued to insist he had a real shot at the Republican nomination all the way through their conventions in both 2008 and 2012, despite all evidence and logic, and then compounded this error by continuing to insist he could actually realistically win as a write-in candidate? They’ll probably be even more numerous in 2016, and it’s not unrealistic that a bunch of them could sign up as LP convention delegates to vote for NOTA. A good case against NOTA is at http://harrybrowne.org/2000/WasItWorthIt.htm .
I don’t think it is fair or accurate to characterize Gary Johnson as a Republican. As far as I know he has not been associated with that party since 2011, and he has been a pledge signing member of the LP since the 1980s and a dues paying member at various points in the 1980s and 90s. Even as an elected Republican he was always closer to being a libertarian than an establishment Republican ideologically. Joshua also has some R/L cross-party fusionism happening in his elected position as well, so that line of criticism is particularly ironic. I applaud Gary Johnson for owning a pot company – entrepreneurship is great, and it’s awesome that marijuana is finally starting to become legal, as we have fought for for decades. But if all he was was a Republican pot entrepreneur why would he have the highest number of torches awarded by the ACLU to any candidate in 2012, beating out Ron Paul, President Obama and (by a long shot) all of the Republican field, covering a couple of dozen issues covering the spectrum of social and civil liberties issues? Why would he call himself a flaming liberal on civil liberties or wear a Bleeding Heart Libertarians T-shirt or a peace sign? I believe attacks against Gary Johnson as a pothead Republican or rightwinger are inaccurate, although I agree that his message needs to be better honed to not give the impression that we agree with Republicans far more than we actually do on economic issues. I agree with Joshua in the specific criticisms over prison privatization and the “fair” tax.
To your second question – the libertarians who criticized “government intervention” when the government sought to limit bonuses paid out of bailout money; those who praise sweatshops and Walmart; Libertarian/Republican Governors who defend prison privatization; libertarians who argue that there is no wage gap because “in a free market…”; libertarians who claim that the privileged position of big business is a market outcome; those who call big businessmen the persecuted minority; libertarians who show up at OWS to speak about the greatness of the 1%…
As to your last point, it is precisely because “helping the poor” has been identified with statist intervention that we must reclaim it, since we are the only group that actually has a plan that will work. If we present as selfish Randians, then we condemn the poor by allowing the statists to be the only people publicly talking about helping the poor.
JK> “The poor have the most to gain from freedom, and the most to lose from statism.
MUCH better!
JK> “This message is entirely lost when Libertarians spend their time, instead, on corporate apologia.
When, where and which Libertarian has done this?
JK> ““Liberalitarian,” sure, whatever. I’m not going to shy away from the benefits of freedom for society’s most vulnerable.
Nor should you! However, because the fact that for the past century, “helping the poor” has been synonymous with statist intervention into the free market, one MUST ALWAYS be clear on this to whomever we are addressing.
http://praxeology.net/mexch-so-RTL.htm
Yes, some are better at things than others. But we have every reason to suspect that inequality is greater today than it would be in a free market. All we need to do is look at actual government action. As I said earlier, there is a network of regulations preventing small businesses from being started and from succeeding. There is a school-prison pipeline that applies only to the poor. There are bailouts, there are subsidies, there are tariffs.
The problem is that this reality doesn’t match the mythology promoted by a Russian novelist, full of Marxists around the corner and welfare recipients too lazy to work – whose cost is noted, but not the much larger amount of money spent paying defense contractors.
So the choice is rigid adherence to a novel, or actually engaging with the real impact of government intervention. If Libertarians wish to brand ourselves as plutocrats and cede the pursuit of real justice to those least equipped to achieve it, so be it. The delegates will decide.
The delegates will also decide about the other points in the comment you pulled from Facebook. If the delegates feel that experience counts above all else – despite a Governor receiving such a poor result – they will vote accordingly. If the delegates value ideology, and vote based on that, their choice will depend on their view of liberty. I stand firmly in the historical libertarian legacy – that of Proudon, Molinari, Bastiat. Whether or not the delegates wish to embrace that view is up to them. If they care about prison privatization, again, they will vote accordingly.
NOTA will be on the ballot. I have trouble making the case for myself over NOTA given the party’s position and resources. I would have less trouble supporting NOTA, though, if the Republicans were not likely to run a candidate who will confuse the public about libertarianism. In any event, I can likely favor NOTA over myself, but I don’t think NOTA can win, and I’d rather me than a right-wing candidate or a Republican who owns a pot company.
Of course there would be more inequality in a free market. Anyone with a lick of sense knows this. Government ties the hands of the capable and steals their wealth to help the undeserving and ungrateful welfare leeches in keeping with the Marxist and Fabianist ideology pushed by the you know whos through their controlled media and education system. This ideology goes completely against human nature by trying to make us all equal, but we are not all equal; some races and ethnicities are better at some things and some are better at others, men are better at some things and women are better at others, different people are born with different capabilities and in different circumstances and develop differently. This unnatural ideology which seeks to replace all common wisdom developed by trial and error over millenia, tradition, and law of nature with false egalitarianism is actually being pushed by a hostile group of manipulators and parasites that seek to divide and conquer our society, which they consider to be nothing but a bunch of cattle for them to exploit. They are the enemies of our liberty.
jk: Here are two facts that Libertarians need to be hitting hard:
1. Government intervention is the cause of massive inequality, and the worst thing for the existing poor.
me: A “fact”? Or is it your “belief”? Big difference.
It looks to me more like a theory, and I’m not even sure it’s one I’m familiar with. Personally, I can track with government intervention being hurtful for the existing poor, but the rest seems like a leap to me.
I see no reason to believe that there would be less inequality in a free market, though. There might be more inequality, as the more skilled can benefit more from a freer flow of goods and services.
I wen to your facebook site. Someone else there (no, it wasn’t me) left this comment, which I think makes a lot of sense. Quoted in part:
“I don’t see how you can seriously think you can run for president of the United States. First, you don’t have the experience. We are regrettably finishing up the 2nd term from a person who had very little experience going into office. His lack of experience has directly contributed to this everlasting recession and war. In my opinion, you’d need to be at least a Senator, governor, or their counterparts in the private sector, or military before attempting to run the US Executive Branch and military.
Second, having met you, looks are important. I don’t judge people by their appearance but politics is marketing and the American public will. Your official photo does not represent how you appear in real life.
Third, I remember your speech. It was very informative. One of the best sections was the part where you discussed how we Libertarians think too big because we’re taught to deal with war, foreign affairs, the global economy, but that zoning laws and health codes are not sexy. But that’s what you have to in local politics: know your bylaws, get involved and see the trees and not just the forest. And then you announce your candidacy….not for State Rep., not for State Senate, not for US Congress—nope, bypass all that and go right for the top job in the country. I was shocked.
I won’t even go into your 3rd party status and struggle out of the chute. Gary Johnson was a successful governor and got 5%.” (Actually only 0.99% but that only reinforces his point).
Thanks Paulie. I choose the former. I’m not a Republican, after all.
Great points, Joshua, but I think you probably didn’t mean to say you choose the latter, from context:
Here are two facts that Libertarians need to be hitting hard:
1. Government intervention is the cause of massive inequality, and the worst thing for the existing poor.
2. The poor have the most to gain from freedom, and the most to lose from statism.
This message is entirely lost when Libertarians spend their time, instead, on corporate apologia. The reason we are the voice of the powerless is precisely because government is nothing but institutionalized privilege. Only the powerful can gain control over a massive organization with incredible power. So, please spare me the nonsense argument that defending the powerless is equivalent to socialism. It just shows that you’ve bought into a false premise – that the argument is whether government should do nothing, or should help the poor. It isn’t – the latter isn’t on the table: never will be, and never can be, by the very nature of government. The question is whether government should stay out, or should hurt the poor. I choose the latter.
There would be inequality on the market, but, I believe, nothing near the level of inequality we see today. I say that based simply on the fact that the vast majority of government interventions into the economy are wealth-consolidating. This includes the obvious, such as direct transfers of wealth. It also includes the entire regulatory framework – less obvious, but still odious. Why can’t a poor person go start a business, as the Republican chides? The obvious reason is the network of regulations making it very costly to start a business.
Go get a job, then: except that we have the NLRA, the minimum wage, and government subsidies that, together, raise unemployment for the uneducated and reduce wages on average.
Ok, so go get an education: Your government has so generously pushed tuition sky-high, so that’s cool. As another favor, keep in mind that the government has made student loans the only loans not dischargeable in bankruptcy. So it’s fine for Donald Trump to acquire his casinos through eminent domain, and go bankrupt 8 times – but if you decide that education will improve your opportunities, bankruptcy laws offer you little help when it turns out that “education raises wages” was a lie.
Yet, for some reason, we have Libertarians who prefer not to point out that our policies are the best for the poor, and instead to engage in rhetorical attacks on the poor as lazy. This is not only incorrect, but foolhardy in terms of positioning. We should not be apologizing for the impact of laws we, quite rightly, oppose. We should not be pointing to the results of government intervention as shining, glorious examples of the free market.
As for “pot-smoking Republicans” I am referring to the way we are dismissed far too often. Of course many of us do not smoke pot – I don’t, for instance. Our policies aren’t Republican, and many of us don’t smoke pot – we believe anyone should have the right to control what goes into their bodies. I would add that pot regulation, at the moment, is more tied to protection for pharmaceutical firms than anything else, although originally it was driven by nativist concerns.
None of these points are socialist or Marxist (I would be very interested to see what percentage of people who throw those terms around have ever read Marx, though.) They are libertarian, without the varnish of attacks on the poor as lazy.
“Liberalitarian,” sure, whatever. I’m not going to shy away from the benefits of freedom for society’s most vulnerable. I am not going to stop fighting for this party to refuse to shy away from that point either.
I agree with Dave Terry. Joshua Katz sounds more like a Marxist than a Libertarian. But then just like the other fake liberaltarian, Gary zionist Johnson, Katz will stand no chance against the NOTA tide of Ron/Rand Paul supporters who will come to the convention as delegates to make sure there is no chance the LP can spoil the election for Rand Paul against the evil Marxist femicommie Hillary Clinton.
JK> “The Libertarian Party should be the party that lifts up the downtrodden, protects the oppressed, speaks for those who cannot be heard, and gives inspiration to those who have given up hope.”
You CALL yourself a Libertarian, but your rhetoric is Democrat, if not out-and-out Socialist;
the only things missing are the terms ‘proletariat’ and ‘bourgeois’
JK> “A person who wishes to be our standard-bearer should not make statements that make us sound like the defenders of corporate privilege.”
NOR should he sound like a Socialist..
JK> “Libertarians are not pot-smoking Republicans. Our economic plan is entirely different from theirs, and we do ourselves no good in pretending otherwise”
Another cliche’? How do you classify NON-pot smoking Libertarians?.
Dave Terry – I suspect you see that I don’t make this “mistake” about Democrats in this particular piece. I have no reason to comment about how Democrats differ from Libertarians when I’m addressing a claim about a Republican. If Johnson had said “Obama is half-right” I’d have written instead about Democrats having a different view of civil liberties than Libertarians do.
Are there people in that party (Rand, sadly, not among them) who have actual free market views? Almost certainly – but, unfortunately, far too many of even those fail to differentiate. The general public also fails to differentiate – in large part because we fail to point out the difference. Even among Libertarians, far too many make comments that can be taken to support corporations, then fix them only when called out. We need to be out in front against corporate crimes, not complaining about welfare queens then, when called out, saying “oh yea, bailouts are bad too.”
That said, those Republicans who do not favor the plan of their party, a plan which calls for enriching the few at the expense of the many, have chosen the wrong party. They would do well to separate themselves from an organization that promotes such an evil plan, if they don’t want others to think they support it – especially when they use identical language and, for tactical reasons, purposefully blur those lines.
The Libertarian Party should be the party that lifts up the downtrodden, protects the oppressed, speaks for those who cannot be heard, and gives inspiration to those who have given up hope. A person who wishes to be our standard-bearer should not make statements that make us sound like the defenders of corporate privilege.
Libertarians are not pot-smoking Republicans. Our economic plan is entirely different from theirs, and we do ourselves no good in pretending otherwise.
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2011/11/joshua-katz-an-open-lettter-to-the-police/
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2012/05/joshua-katz-a-message-from-the-ct-delegation-chair/
previously at IPR
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2014/10/libertarian-joshua-katz-considers-2016-prez-bid/
Many good points here. I hope to hear them debated thoroughly in the race for the nomination.
Joshua Katz> “Johnson says that Rand [Paul] is right on half the issues. However, this buys into the myth that libertarians are ‘fiscal conservatives and social liberals.”: “The Republicans are not for free markets – they use the term to mean corporate privilege.”
Some do, Most don’t! Your use of exclusive black vs white comparatives is dis-functional as well as insulting. I see that you DON’T make that mistake when describing Democrats. Is there some reason for this incongruity?