Green Party nominee Jill Stein has been engaged in a post-election fundraising drive in order to pay for recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. She does not dispute her own vote totals in those states, but is basing her claim on alleged irregularities, the possibility that voting machines were hacked, and how “unexpected” the results were. WI and PA were unexpectedly won by Trump and thus delivered his win in the Electoral College; MI remains too close to formally call but Trump has consistently maintained a narrow lead in the returns there.
As Politico reports, this effort initially had a stated goal of $2.5 million but has since been raised, with Stein now talking about a figure of “6 to 7 million” and the current goal on the website being $4.5 million.
As of now, Stein’s website shows a total raised of $4,123,365.70. This comfortably exceeds her total raised during the actual election campaign.
According to Federal Elections Commission website, as of the most recent report covering through October 19, Jill Stein for President had raised a total of $3,015,906 in individual contributions, plus $456,035 in federal matching funds accepted for the primary. Stein herself had also extended $40,000 in loans to the campaign.
Trump’s lead in Wisconsin is currently 27,257 votes, or 1% of the total. In Pennsylvania his lead over Clinton is 70,010 votes, or just under 1.2% of the total. Both margins are well outside the range historically likely to be overturned by a recount.
“robert capozzi
December 2, 2016 at 15:07
aj, you added ‘hardcore,’ that’s how.”
Well, that’s what the ideal is, so I am just stating the ideal.
aj, you added “hardcore,” that’s how.
The LP’s preamble speaks of a seeking a “world of liberty,” which could be moved toward in a number of ways. You could gather together a cadre of super-human Ls who have FaNL memorized…that might be one way. Or you might get the vast majority preferring a gradual path toward less government. And many others.
There is no obvious “correct” solution. It should be obvious that we are NOT on a L path now, and so public opinion and policy needs a significant change in direction if we seek a world of liberty.
“robert capozzi
December 2, 2016 at 14:27
aj, you are moving the goalposts. Now you want “hardcore” (whatever THAT is) Ls, not just Ls.”
How am I moving the goal posts? Our ideal SHOULD BE to convert as many people to being harcore libertarians as possible. I realize that not everybody is going to go to the top of the Nolan Chart, and I realize that there are still debates between those who are at (or near) the top of the Nolan Chart, but I’m just saying that we want as many people as possible to be as libertarian as possible.
aj, you are moving the goalposts. Now you want “hardcore” (whatever THAT is) Ls, not just Ls.
“robert capozzi
December 2, 2016 at 14:03
aj: I mean the percent of people who voted for our party’s candidates because they really know the party and candidate’s platform and agree with it
me: OK, what’s the number?
And what percentage of the population believe there IS a CotOS, and how many of them voted GJ? To start things off, I can count probably 3 GJ voters who don’t believe in the existence of this cult…GJ, WW, and me.”
I do not have the answers to these questions. Somebody would have to conduct some scientific surveys to get any data on this, and I do not know that anyone has done this.
Just going from my own anecdotal evidence based on many years of being involved with this stuff, I have found that candidates who water down the libertarian message to the point where it starts to drown generally do not create a lot of hardcore libertarians.
aj: I mean the percent of people who voted for our party’s candidates because they really know the party and candidate’s platform and agree with it
me: OK, what’s the number?
And what percentage of the population believe there IS a CotOS, and how many of them voted GJ? To start things off, I can count probably 3 GJ voters who don’t believe in the existence of this cult…GJ, WW, and me.
“Anthony Dlugos
December 1, 2016 at 15:59
You know about the tree falling in the woods that makes no sound because no one is there to hear it?”
Once again, the dynamics of the election this year made it the most favorable conditions in which the Libertarian Party has ever run a candidate for President, so our party’s ticket was likely to get more votes than average regardless of who we nominated.
We have no way of knowing for sure how much publicity any of the other candidates for President or Vice President would have gotten had they been nominated, but judging from the performances and reactions that we have gotten from some of the media appearances that Johnson and Weld received, I’d wager that any of the other main candidates for the presidential and vice presidential nominations would have handled whatever media coverage they did get better than Johnson/Weld did.
I have encountered more than a few people, including those who do not typically follow the Libertarian Party, who were TURNED off by Johnson/Weld’s media performances. Some were turned off by some of their goofy responses and gaffes (like the “Aleppo” moment), and others were turned off by some of their anti-liberty, and/or watered down (from a libertarian perspective) issue stances (such as their stances related to the right to keep and bear arms). Keep in mind that we are in the age where people can watch videos online, so these clips of Johnson/Weld making asses out of themselves, and of us for having nominated them, will live on to haunt us for many years to come.
Sure, the 4.4 million and something votes that Johnson/Weld got, which comes out to something like 3.25% of the vote, sounds impressive by LP standards, but I believe that the potential this year was significantly higher than there. I don’t think that it is unrealistic to say that 5-10% was realistically achievable this year.
Quality of votes is something that ought to be considered when analyzing vote totals instead of just looking at the quantity of votes. I agree that quantity of votes is important, but that quality of votes is also important, and by quality of votes I mean the percent of people who voted for our party’s candidates because they really know the party and candidate’s platform and agree with it, versus the percent of people who voted for the candidates because they agreed with them on a few issues, versus the people who voted for the candidates who knew little to nothing about the candidates or the party and were just casting a protest vote because they were not happy with the candidates whom the Democrats and the Republican nominated, in Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
If our goal is to move society in a libertarian direction, then our goal SHOULD BE win as many people over as possible to agreeing with the Libertarian Party’s platform (or at least most of the platform), and we are not going to accomplish this by running candidates like Johnson/Weld, who RAN AGAINST the party’s platform, and/or watered down the party’s platform, on multiple issues, and who also downplayed the fact that they were even Libertarian Party candidates by actively RUNNING AWAY from the word Libertarian on multiple occasions throughout their campaign.
“Anthony Dlugos
December 1, 2016 at 19:54
Perhaps.
Or it might be that the decision would be made too late to go the independent route.
But I don’t know how a couple pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, pro-immigration politicians who were in favor of applying the civil rights act against christian bakers could be called republican-lite.”
A “liberal” Republican is not necessarily the same thing as a Libertarian, as is the case with Johnson/Weld, as neither of them are real libertarians.
FYI, as Governor of New Mexico, Gary Johnson signed a bill that BANNED late term abortions, and he also came out in favor of parental notification if a minor wanted to get an abortion. He also said that the issue of abortion should be decided at the state level (which would mean that some states would likely ban it). So Johnson is not as “pro-choice” on abortion as some people think.
While it is true that Johnson and Weld hold some positions that appeal to people on the left, they also hold positions and have a record of supporting things that appeal to conservatives. This does NOT automatically make them libertarians though, as it is more of an example of why defining libertarianism as being “fiscally conservative and socially liberal” is a dumbed down, and sometimes inaccurate way of defining someone being a libertarian.
Gary Johnson supported the death penalty as Governor, and he in fact tried to expand the death penalty to include people as young as 13 years old. Gary Johnson supported privatized prisons, which is really not a great libertarian reform considering when under a system where people are convicted for victimless crimes (and note that as Governor, Gary Johnson only pardoned 128 people, and these pardons were issued AFTER these people had severed their sentences), where we do not have fair jury trials (as in randomly selected, fully informed juries), where these prisons are funded via taxation, and where the private prison companies and their stock holders (and others who profiteer from them) can take part in electoral politics. Gary Johnson endorsed George W. Bush for President (and this was years after Johnson had proclaimed himself to be a libertarian, and Johnson was not running for reelection, so it was not like he needed a political favor).
Bill Weld was a big supporter of George HW Bush and George W. Bush (note that he raised over $100,000 to help with George W. Bush’s re-election campaign), and he also endorsed Jeb Bush for President in September of 2015. After Jeb Bush was eliminated in the Republican primaries, Weld endorsed John Kasich for President, the man responsible for screwing the Libertarian Party of Ohio out of being a ballot qualified party, and he did this in February of 2016, just 3 months prior to joining the Libertarian Party and declaring himself to be a candidate for the party’s vice presidential nomination. Weld’s prior foray into the Libertarian Party in 2006 ended with him stabbing the Libertarian Party of New York in back we won the LP of New York’s nomination for Governor, when he broke his promise to stay in the race as a Libertarian even if he lost the Republican nomination for Governor (New York is one of the few states that allows fusion candidates, that is candidates who run under more than one party banner), and a big part of the reason he dropped out is because the Republican Party did not want the Libertarian Party to become a ballot qualified party in New York by getting at least 50,000 votes for Governor. Weld supported the war in Iraq, the Patriot Act (he even signed a letter urging Congress to renew sections of The Patriot Act that were set to expire), and using eminent domain for corporate interests. During his run as the Libertarian Party’s candidate for Vice President, Weld donated money to the big government Republican candidate for Governor of New Hampshire, Chris Sununu, who was running against a Libertarian Party candidate, Max Abramson, in a race where the Libertarian candidate’s vote percent determine whether or not the LP of New Hampshire had ballot access for the next two years (fortunately, Abramson achieved this vote test for ballot access, in spite of Bill Weld undermining his campaign). Weld is also a long time crony of Mitt Romney, whom he endorsed for President in 2012, and whom he and Gary Johnson said that they would want to appoint to a high level position in their administration if they were to win the election, and Weld also said that after the election is over, he wants to work with Mitt Romney to rebuild the Republican Party.
Because they are 2 ex-GOP governors who held just as many conservative positions as libertarian ones, openly flirted w/ Romney and often positioned themselves as a GOP protest vote. You act like pro-choice, pro-immigration, pro-gay marriage is some big accomplishment. A libertarian candidate should have those positions(or at the very least, a none-of-my-business tolerance). Granted, quite an accomplishment if they were running as republicans, but as libertarians they held quite a few positions that simply do not belong in a libertarian party, positions on gun rights, government lists, taxes, the patriot act, surveillance, the regulatory state and military spending/supremacy.
And you are selling out not even to win…you are selling out for a participation trophy. From my vantage point, there are quite a few republican-lite participation trophy achievers among the LP delegates. Which is why anyone with the resources to run a competitive campaign would likely avoid the LP route. Based on the last 3 candidacies, the LP is nothing more than a GOP protest vote outlet.
Perhaps.
Or it might be that the decision would be made too late to go the independent route.
But I don’t know how a couple pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, pro-immigration politicians who were in favor of applying the civil rights act against christian bakers could be called republican-lite.
There were malcontents complaining they were bending over backwards to try and go after Democrats and Hillary supporters
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/is-this-the-dawn-of-bake-me-a-cake-libertarianism/article/2592687
“Weld and Johnson held their first post-nomination joint interview on Tuesday, on liberal network MSNBC. “We’ve never bought into this anti-choice, anti-gay…sense of the Republican Party,” Weld said, as his first comment to the national television audience.
The message was clear: We don’t need those backward Christian Right bozos as much we need as you MSNBCers.”
My guess is that a libertarian who could actually launch a competitive race would bypass the republican-lite fan club convention altogether. Someone who had the resources to be competitive would not need the LP. I hate to break it to you…
“One good way to attract better candidates than Johnson NEXT time is to have demonstrated THIS time that we are not about to nominate the catastrophically unqualified.”
True. Too bad we didn’t think about that.
You know about the tree falling in the woods that makes no sound because no one is there to hear it?
In the strictest sense of the word, none of those other dopes would have be termed a “candidate” because no one other than libertarians would be hearing the message.
One good way to attract better candidates than Johnson NEXT time is to have demonstrated THIS time that we are not about to nominate the catastrophically unqualified.
A Silicon Valley libertarian CEO,for example, wants some assurance he’s not going to come to our convention and get upstaged by a loser without a resume who gets on stage and says “taxation is theft.” That is one of the primary reasons I voted for Johnson. At a bare minimum, it tells future potential candidates they better have something on their resume other than toy store mascot. Perferrably something of a executive leadership nature.
I see GJ as maybe Foreigner, with Perry as Wreckless Eric*, Petersen as Rick Springfield, and McAfee as Meatloaf.
Would I have preferred Talking Heads or REM? Yes.
* Obscure kind of British punk from the late 70s. Here’s his “best” song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZemjG7z0OXo
Anthony Dlugos said: “and then a drug addict with potential murder charges AND a pump and dump stock scheme, an angry anarchist radio talk show host who admitted to sleeping on a friend’s couch within the last couple years due to money issues, an asshat 35-year old blogger who had tin man at FAO Schwartz toy store on his resume, and an individual who met his untimely demise here in Cleveland under what I would describe are problematic circumstances.”
Yes, and each one of them would have been a better candidate than Gary Johnson.
that ain’t abba…poor man’s late 80s rush tribute band, maybe
https://youtu.be/LGD8gJt7weU?t=99
I won’t quibble with that analogy.
As you know, Thomas, I have a standing offer to commiserate over some good scotch…or bourbon…with anyone over our lack of better choices in Orlando. My support for Johnson was enthusiastic largely because of how bad the alternatives were.
In other words, we had the Grateful Dead, the Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix to choose from and decided to nominate Abba.
We didn’t have the option of a verifiable moderately intelligent option in Orlando.
We had a man smart enough to be a self-made millionaire and get elected governor…however smart that makes him, and then a drug addict with potential murder charges AND a pump and dump stock scheme, an angry anarchist radio talk show host who admitted to sleeping on a friend’s couch within the last couple years due to money issues, an asshat 35-year old blogger who had tin man at FAO Schwartz toy store on his resume, and an individual who met his untimely demise here in Cleveland under what I would describe are problematic circumstances.
However bad you think Johnson carried on his campaign, however erratic his behavior, on Memorial Day weekend in Orlando, we had no other option.
Arguments between “the shiny badge caucus” and the “ideological libertarians” over who would garnered the better participation trophy are a red herring. The real tragedy of the election was best summarized by Pete Blome, Chair of the Northwest Florida Libertarian Party in an Op-Ed.
http://www.nwfdailynews.com/news/20161114/guest-column-whats-next-for-future-of-libertarians
more…
Schiff endorsed GJ, but changed his vote at the last minute.
cm: Those other candidates may have gotten less media initially than Johnson, but at lease they would have used that media to spread the libertarian message and gain voters rather than look like idiots and alienate voters.
me: Chuck, you admit that a no-namer “may have gotten less media initially,” but are you saying that if, say, Perry somehow got on Meet The Press and he called for, say, abolishing taxes, do you want us to believe that he would have gotten MORE media than J/W? Do you really believe that such outrageous positions from a person with no resume or celebrity would be on the short list of news producers?
Keep in mind that if the LP had nominated Perry, Andy would have voted for him but I would not have. I sit out the election when the LP puts up a fringe candidate.
I suspect a lot of right-leaning NAPsters voted for DJT. Peter Schiff did, for ex.
I’m treating you with kid gloves…
I think the disconnect between the shiny badge caucus (who believe Johnson got 4x more votes than any other libertarian would have) and ideological libertarians (who believe any LP presidential candidate would have done well this election and others may have beat the Johnson percentage) is that the shiny badge caucus believes everyone who would have voted for anyone else votes for Johnson and in addition Johnson got a lot of shiny badge votes.
This is not actually the case. First, many ideological libertarians did not vote for Johnson. They either voted for another candidate or stayed home. Second, Johnson ran against the party platform while other candidates would have run with the party platform. This meant Johnson waffled on taxes, guns, civil liberties, non-interventionism, etc. Many of the single issue voters who would have supported a libertarian candidate strong on their issues did not vote for him. Those voters may well have supported another LP candidate. Third, Johnson was a gaffe machine. He did not do
well with the media, responding to basic questions, articulating libertarian positions, displaying casuap knowledge of news, events, geography, history, policies, etc. Other LP candidates likely would have done far better at those things. Those other candidates may have gotten less media initially than Johnson, but at lease they would have used that media to spread the libertarian message and gain voters rather than look like idiots and alienate voters.
It’s not all about the shony badge! A lot of my mother’s friends told her they agreed with libertarian positions and hated Hillary and Trump, but they couldn’t vote for Johnson because he looked like a deer in the headlights stoned out of his mind all the time and they want their president to be moderately intelligent.
AJ: they do not know how to grow an organization or advance the cause for which they are advocates.
Me: Are their ANY Ls who fit that description? All the numbers I’ve seen are tiny, with tiny perturbations over time.
dL, I don’t care for your tone. My patience is now over-taxed.
You are not regurgitating Georgism. Period. I’ve found that the use of the word “pure” on this forum to be a lazy tactic for simply making up one’s own mental constructs in lieu of actually knowing anything. For example, say, opportunity costs==next best use of a resource. Well that’s the “purest” take, but “my” take is whatever I want it to mean b/c taking time to read an economics textbook would interfere w/ my TV time w/ Anderson Cooper.
Can you provide a link where a neo-georgist approvingly quotes Robert Capozzi’s position on civil society?
And I would say you apparently have never read a book. Not that anything would ever address your specific critique b/c to best of my knowledge you don’t have one. However, the problem of “lack of equity in the jurisprudential approach to property rights,” i.e, “injustice in modern state property rights regimes” is a core topic in the historical libertarian literature. Certainly Bastiat’s “The Law” classically treats the problem of justice/injustice…what it is, what it is not. Now I understand you are actually not a libertarian so you probably reject Bastiat for something like Neo-TedCruzian Lessanarchism, or whatever you call it, but no one else is on the right combination of meds to figure out exactly what the hell that means.
dL: Well, I am a Georgist. You haven’t shown the slightest evidence in your commentary that you even know what the term means. UBI may be a possible attribute of Georgism, but Georgism itself is political-economic principle that the public revenue for the public goods of a community == the land rent of that community. More succinctly, land rents should replace all forms of taxation and would be adequate to finance “public goods.”
Me: Perhaps you missed what I wrote. “If one adopts a Georgist construct, something like UBI would be just, since citizens would be viewed as the rightful owners of the natural resources prior to those resources being developed.”
A “Georgist construct” and “something like UBI” should be flags that I was not regurgitating pure “Georgism.” Sorry I wasn’t clearer for you. There are those who call themselves “neo-Georgist” who I think make an interesting case for how to view civil societies.
I would say that my critique of the lack of equity in the jurisprudential approach to property rights has yet to be addressed by my L brethren. We shouldn’t be surprised by the growing sense of unfairness of the economic system stems from a sloppy property rights claims process.
Then again, I’m not an adherent to any one dogma. I’m interested in ideas that could potentially work better than the current configuration; that promote domestic tranquility; that are reasonably equitable; and represent general principles that allow for social evolution and potentially enhance prosperity for all.
You seem to believe your predictive skills are extraordinary, but predicting UBI leads to “rebuild[ing] the “Wall of Troy” reinforced by alligator moats,” seems silly to me. Perhaps this is another example of you auditioning to be a Borscht Belt comedian. If so, keep your day job! 😉
I interpret not voting as “I don’t give a shit. Do what you want to me.”
I bugged my father for years for not being registered. I finally got him to vote in 2000. While I was on my long vacation he would just vote for who I wanted. 🙂
Now he votes every year. And this year he even voted for his choice and had an actual reason. As long as it wasn’t He-who-must-not-be-named I was happy.
I’m not disappointed by low turnout. I interpret not voting as a vote for “None of the Above.”
I don’t know how people would vote if they were forced to vote. If I was forced to vote, I’d vote against the assholes who forced me to vote. But that’s just me.
Well, we can agree that turnout was very disappointing. I just get sad when people tell me they don’t vote or have no interest.
I know you will disagree, but I personally feel that a large portion of the people who choose not to vote would not be voting republican if they were forced to vote.
Tony,
OK, you and I use “whipped” differently. For me, it just means “beat.” If I want to indicate something more than that, I would add to the word, e.g. “whipped her ass” or “opened a can of whipass on her” or something like that.
I’m certainly not suggesting that Trump has some kind of “mandate.” Not even a bare majority would constitute that IMO, and he and Clinton each received the votes of somewhere in the neighborhood of a whopping 1 in 5 Americans.
TK, I found your last post interesting because you seem to admit that your use of the word “whipped” wasn’t really accurate. You didn’t seem to defend it when I used my football analogy. There is a difference between “whipped” and “won.”
Also, you didn’t seem to touch on how I feel that the Popular vote does have some relevance in how the “winner” should act.. If he thinks he can go all crazy-right without significant strong blowback, he is very mistaken. Why would this be? Because the “popular vote” shows that a majority of voters are not on his side. Not to mention the voter remorse some are already feeling.
Andy : ” ,. . . . .BREAKING: Jill Stein Exposed For Corruption With DNC . . . ”
Here we go again! Get on the conspiracy train! Whoo Whoo!!
I will speak for myself, but the standard is not who could have beaten Republican-lite 3%. To me, that’s the very definition of losertarianism. That’s jacking your dick over a participation trophy. Personally, I found the entire candidate slate to be lacking in terms of anyone who could actually pull of a competitive race. It usually is. I imagine that any libertarian who could actually pull off a competitive race would probably bypass the republican-lite Beattle’s fan convention to launch their own independent effort.
BREAKING: Jill Stein Exposed For Corruption With DNC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ur-_jHVE-n0
“Robert Capozzi
November 30, 2016 at 14:23
I’d say Stein benefited from the Sanders phenomenon. Notice that there’s a big gap between GJ and JS vs DC’s performance.”
Darrell Castle would have done a lot better if he and the Constitution Party had started getting organized earlier, and if they had not botched several ballot access drives.
“Thomas L. Knapp
November 30, 2016 at 13:25
Anthony,
Yes, you should check your premises, starting with the strawman that it’s all about “purists” versus your fantasy football politics league.”
Fantasy football is a good comparison.
I think that there were two groups of delegates at the LP national convention. There were those of us who were there because we wanted to take part in the animating contest for liberty (to borrow a phrase from Samuel Adams), and there were those who were there to take part in their fantasy politics league, which is a perfect description of Anthony Dlugos and other Johnson/Weld supporters. These are people who are more concerned with putting on suits and power ties and strutting around at hotels acting like they are important than they are concerned with the struggle for individual liberty.
I’d say Stein benefited from the Sanders phenomenon. Notice that there’s a big gap between GJ and JS vs DC’s performance.
Yes, it was a relatively strong 3rd party result overall. A no name L might have outperformed GJ’s 2012 result. Had GJ known Aleppo, he might have done better still. Since there’s so many variables, we can’t be sure results in alternative universes.
To not recognize that DJT is an outlier is to not pay attention.
Tony,
The national popular vote is irrelevant to who wins the presidential election. That’s just a simple fact.
I thought the simple analogy worked.
Q: If one team rushes and passes for 400 yards and the other team rushes and passes for 150 yards, which team wins the football game?
A: Whichever team scores the most points.
Q: If one presidential candidate gets 64.9 million votes nationwide and another gets 62.5 million votes nationwide, which one wins the presidential election?
A: Whichever candidate wins the popular votes in states disposing of 270 or more electoral votes.
We can talk all day long about how the NFL ought to award points for yards rushed/passed and how the US Constitution should mandate a different way of choosing the president. But the systems that exist ARE the systems that exist.
No, I don’ expect the world to bend to my will. However, I can predict the outcomes of polices ,and I’m sufficiently educated to recognize statements such as “civil order may involve improvements and some sub-optimal elements” to be vacuous drivel.
Well, I am a Georgist. You haven’t shown the slightest evidence in your commentary that you even know what the term means. UBI may be a possible attribute of Georgism, but Georgism itself is political-economic principle that the public revenue for the public goods of a community == the land rent of that community. More succinctly, land rents should replace all forms of taxation and would be adequate to finance “public goods.”
Georgism is not: land rents are simply added on top of everything else.
Georgism is not: a conditional UBI added on top other conditional welfare transfers.
Georgism is not: a crackpot “net reduction in government coercion” calculation computed in the mind of Robert Capozzi.
My view of UBI is that is proposed by people who have essentially given up on reforming the security bureaucracies of liberal governments. Instead they propose some UBI social justice scheme to paper over that injustice. But following Bastiat, justice is the absence of injustice. Justice is not instead of one punch to the head in the morning, I get two with a bag of coal. Of course, to get the bag of coal, you have to first make sure you say “Simon seyz.” Failure to follow orders means you get three punches to the head and no bag of coal.
The effect of a UBI on the polity would make it 10 times worse. instead of the rebuilding the Berlin wall, the cons would want to rebuild the “Wall of Troy” reinforced by alligator moats. “Because the people are paying to put bread on your table, the people have the right to tell you how to conduct your personal behavior.” The mommy-daddy state would be ratcheted up.
“Anthony Dlugos
November 30, 2016 at 13:39
Color what happened in Orlando however you want; the idea that any other candidate would have done as well or better than J-W is baseless speculation refured by the only data point we have: how well each candidate did in Orlando, and the safest assumption I’ve ever typed out: that the general population is less libertarian than the crowd in Orlando was.”
How well each candidate for the nominations did in Orlando IS DIRECTLY RELATED TO THE MAKEUP OF THE CONVENTION DELEGATES. The Johnson/Weld camp did more delegate recruiting and counting than any of the other campaigns, and they also SPENT 10 TIMES AS MUCH MONEY AS ALL OF THE OTHER CAMPAIGNS COMBINED, yet they still BARELY WON THE NOMINATIONS.
Considering that Johnson/Weld BARELY won a convention that they had STACKED to a large degree, and considering that they BARELY won even though they spent far more money than any of the other candidates, and considering that their supporters had to resort to SPREADING LIES (like the $250 million, and the Koch brothers) that they BARELY won, should tell you that maybe they were not such great candidates.
“The only legit response to these facts is to just argue that winning is besides the point for Libertarians, which of course I don’t agree with.”
Winning is not besides the point for libertarians. We win by moving society in a libertarian direction. We can do this by winning in electoral politics and implementing our agenda, or we can win by pushing the major parties to implement our agenda (or at least parts of it), or we win by inspiring people to take actions outside of electoral politics that further our agenda (jury nullification, home schooling, alternative currencies, etc…).
We don’t really “win” much of anything by running candidates who stray as far from our message as Johnson/Weld did, and keep in mind, Johnson/Weld did not win the election, so they did not really win anything in the general sense of the term “win” when it comes to elections.
“It’s funny how J-W detractors use the polls when comparing J-W results to the unknowable. (e.g., how many votes an angry anarchist radio talk show host WOULD HAVE received in some alternate universe), then turn right around and make their fantasyland point moot anyway by saying election results don’t matter if the candidate strays too far from their unilateral wet dream libertarianism.”
Election results do matter, but they matter from a stand point of not only number of votes, but by how many people we converted over to a strong libertarian philosophy.
If we are just out to get votes, we should start trying to recruit Bernie Sanders to be our nominee in 2020. He would be lousy at spreading a libertarian message, but he’d probably get us a lot more votes than we’ve ever received before.
Color what happened in Orlando however you want; the idea that any other candidate would have done as well or better than J-W is baseless speculation refured by the only data point we have: how well each candidate did in Orlando, and the safest assumption I’ve ever typed out: that the general population is less libertarian than the crowd in Orlando was.
The only legit response to these facts is to just argue that winning is besides the point for Libertarians, which of course I don’t agree with.
It’s funny how J-W detractors use the polls when comparing J-W results to the unknowable. (e.g., how many votes an angry anarchist radio talk show host WOULD HAVE received in some alternate universe), then turn right around and make their fantasyland point moot anyway by saying election results don’t matter if the candidate strays too far from their unilateral wet dream libertarianism.
TK: ” . . . .I didn’t call Trump’s win a landslide. He whipped his opponents. If he had lost, an opponent would have whipped him. . . . . ”
I guess I have a different definition of “whipped” in the context of an election or contest. If the Jets beat the Patriots 22 – 20, they won. If the Patriots beat the Browns 56 – 3, they whipped them.
I also disagree in part with your opinion of the popular vote. it is not wholly irrelevant. it’s a measuring stick. it shows that more than half of the people who cared enough to vote didn’t buy his snake oil elixir. Treat lightly, Generalissimo.
“Anthony Dlugos
November 30, 2016 at 13:12
So, if I have this right, ‘purer’ candidates in Orlando, who couldn’t convince a room full of libertarians…”
I don’t believe that we had a room full of Libertarians at the convention in Orlando. Sure, we had a room full of people who joined the party so they could become convention delegates, but this does not automatically make them libertarians.
Also, just because a person is a philosophical libertarian, it does not mean that they have a clue when it comes to political strategy. I have met lots of libertarians over the years who are good people with a good philosophy, but they do not know how to grow an organization or advance the cause for which they are advocates. These libertarians are particularly susceptible to being hoodwinked by scam artists (as has happened multiple times over the years in the LP, most notably with some of the nominations at the last few national conventions).
The Johnson/Weld camp also had to resort to spreading lies at the convention. I encountered multiple Johnson/Weld supporters going around at the convention spreading outrageous stories such as, that if Johnson/Weld were to win the nomination, that they would raise $250 million. Johnson/Weld supporters were going around the convention telling people that the Koch brothers were going to give lots of money to Johnson/Weld.
The same thing happened at the 2008 convention in Denver, where Bob Barr supporters told people that if Barr won the nomination, that his campaign would raise $34-$40 million.
I did not believe the fundraising claims made by the Bob Barr supporters in 2008, or the Johnson/Weld supporters in 2016, and I told people not believe these claims at the the convention, but unfortunately, a lot of naive delegates bought into these bogus claims.
It should also be pointed out that the Johnson campaign spent 10 times as much money as all of the other candidates for the nomination combined, and that they did the most recruiting and counting delegates prior to the convention, and even with all of this, they STILL BARELY WON THE NOMINATION.
If you gave me the time and money, I could have easily stacked that convention with different delegates and gotten a different outcome at that convention.
A room full of hardcore libertarians that were not politically naive would have yielded a different result in the nominations.
The American Revolution and the Soviet collapse are not examples of the give and take of the political process. One was a violent rebellion, the other a complete dissolution/secession. China has not had any reduction in it’s government. In any event, “net incidence of of government coercion” is a meaningless, unquantifiable dog whistle audible only to full trained lap dogs.
The United States is not Big Brother. It’s Uncle Exceptional. In Orwell’s Nineteen Eight Four, Big Brother spied on the inner and outer party and left the proles largely alone. Uncle Exceptional however spies on everyone and largely reserves the torture and imprisonment to the proles. Yes, 100% Uncle Exceptional government control is inevitable in the sense that it already self-evidently exists. On a global scale.
Anthony,
Yes, you should check your premises, starting with the strawman that it’s all about “purists” versus your fantasy
footballpolitics league.The party’s “purists” and its political realists managed to hold off the mob of screaming schoolgirls throwing their panties at Johnson/Weld like they were the Beatles for one ballot each. Which proves nothing except that the LP needs more “purists” and political realists and fewer screaming schoolgirls.
So, if I have this right, “purer” candidates in Orlando, who couldn’t convince a room full of libertarians…the most amenable crowd to a pure message they were ever gonna find… to support their pure message, were going to do as good or better than the Johnson-Weld ticket, even though they couldn’t do as good or better than Johnson-Weld in, as I said, the most amenable audience said Purists were ever gonna find.
I think some folks better check their premises.
I guess I have a different definition of “whipped” in the context of an election of context. If the Jets beat the Patriots 22 – 20, they did not whip them. They did win, however. If the Patriots beat the Browns 56 – 3 they whipped them.
I slightly disagree with you on the popular vote under the current system. It’s not wholly irrelevant. It is a measuring stick. The so-called winner can not claim a “mandate” or that “the American people want me to make American great again.”
He can say that he won. That’s it. The popular vote shows that most of the people who cared enough to vote didn’t buy his snake oil elixir. Tread lightly, Generalissimo.
Tony,
I didn’t call Trump’s win a landslide. He whipped his opponents. If he had lost, an opponent would have whipped him.
The national popular vote, as I’ve pointed out, is as irrelevant as yardage in football. Both are interesting facts, neither is a factor for calculating results. Neither of us have to like that. That’s how it is whether we like it or not — and there’s no reason to suppose that if that WASN’T how it is, the vote totals would have been the same.
RC,
I’m not the one who asserted that Johnson/Weld being former governors gave them “credibility.”
A “fact in isolation” is that someone who has never held elected office beat a raft of people who have held elected office.
Another “fact in isolation” is that third party candidates in general did better than usual this year. Johnson (former elected official) did about 3.3 times as well as he did in 2012. Jill Stein (not a former elected official) did about 2.9 times as well as she did in 2012. Darrell Castle (not a former elected official) did about half again as well this year as the Constitution Party’s 2012 candidate (a former congressman) did.
Apparently being a former elected official wasn’t any kind of huge credibility booster this time out. Even with the free bonus publicity that Johnson/Weld got from media who hoped they’d hurt Trump, they didn’t break away from the usual LP totals as multiples of other third party performances.
TK ” . . . .Former elected officials? Just like the 15 candidates Donald Trump — not a former elected official — crushed in the Republican primaries and the one former elected official Donald Trump — not a former elected official — whipped in the general election? Like that there? . . . . ”
Valid point, but Johnson / Weld were not billionaire celebrities.
I thought that someone as smart as you would avoid using “whipped” since he got 2.5 fewer votes and a smaller margin in the electoral college than every election since 1960 except 2000 and 1976. You speak as though it was a landslide.
Also, I firmly believe that had there not been 17 candidates in the Rep primary, he-who-must-not-be-named would not have prevailed. The early primary wins were not blow outs. He lost Iowa then won NH with just 35%. SC with 33%, and only one of his Super Tuesday wins was over 45%.
TK: Just like the 15 candidates Donald Trump — not a former elected official — crushed in the Republican primaries and the one former elected official Donald Trump — not a former elected official — whipped in the general election? Like that there?
me: fact in isolation. DJT is a national celebrity running for the nomination of a major party, not a fringe 3rd party.
Apples. Oranges. Both fruit, but generally recognized as quite different.
Tony Baloney said: ” They do, however, know what CNN is and MSNBC and ABC News etc. ”
Yes, and Johnson and Weld made asses of themselves, and of our party for having nominated them, on several of those TV appearances.
Andy: ” . . . . The LP could have nominated a potted plant and a bottle of vitamin water and that ticket would have received more publicity, and more votes, than any LP ticket in past history. Any plausible ticket other than Johnson/Weld would have likely done 7-10% of the vote. . . . . :”
Oh, god . . . now the conspiracy theorist thinks the LP has a conspiracy against itself . . . .
Tony Baloney? C’mon man. Get more creative than that.
Tony Baloney said: “Anyone else from Orlando would have been a footnote like Dr. Stein.”
Jill Stein got over 1.4 million votes. That is pretty noteworthy for a minor party or independent candidate for President, particularly one that had to compete against a better funded and more well known minor party candidate in Gary Johnson.
“Johnson / Weld had the credibility of both being former elected officials.”
Former elected officials? Just like the 15 candidates Donald Trump — not a former elected official — crushed in the Republican primaries and the one former elected official Donald Trump — not a former elected official — whipped in the general election? Like that there?
TK: ” . . . . . The LP could have nominated a potted plant and a bottle of vitamin water and that ticket would have received more publicity, and more votes, than any LP ticket in past history. Any plausible ticket other than Johnson/Weld would have likely done 7-10% of the vote. . . . . ”
Sorry, TK, I respectfully disagree. Look at Dr. Stein. The left had widespread disdain for Mrs. Clinton. Stein got more coverage than any green candidate other than Nader. She got 1.01%
Any other LP candidate would have gotten the same if not less coverage than Dr. Stein did. Johnson / Weld had the credibility of both being former elected officials.
The failure to take off is on them, but the amount of coverage they got was not simply because they were not Clinton / Trump.
They got 10 times the coverage of Dr. Stein because of their past, not only because of being someone other than Trump / Clinton.
Anyone else from Orlando would have been a footnote like Dr. Stein.
“Thomas L. Knapp
November 30, 2016 at 11:26
‘Whether the others in Orlando were better candidates is a debate that could go on forever, but none of them would have broken 1%.’
The LP could have nominated a potted plant and a bottle of vitamin water and that ticket would have received more publicity, and more votes, than any LP ticket in past history. Any plausible ticket other than Johnson/Weld would have likely done 7-10% of the vote.”
Tom is correct here. The dynamics of this election (which I have explained several times in other threads) made this election the best opportunity that a Libertarian Party presidential ticket has ever had to get a lot of votes. 2008 and 2012 were also great opportunities for the LP (both of which the LP also blew), but 2016 was an even better opportunity.
The Libertarian Party could have run just about anyone and gotten more votes than average. LP national convention delegates could have literally picked two random people out of the audience at the national convention, and as long as they were legally qualified to run, there is a very good chance that they would have received more votes than average for an LP presidential ticket.
Johnson/Weld were the weakest candidates philosophically out of all of the main candidates for President and Vice President at the convention, and they were also the least inspiring as far as their delivery went.
Even if some of the other candidates would have gotten less votes had they been on the presidential ticket, you also have to consider the quality of votes versus the quantity of votes. It would have been more valuable to get a few less votes. but to have gotten them with a stronger libertarian message, than to have gotten the number of votes that Johnson/Weld got with their much weaker message.
“Hell, Johnson and Weld — a wallflower establishment ticket in a circus anti-establishment year — had to bust their asses to avoid first the 15% debate cut and then the 5% welfare check cut. A couple of times I wondered if they had listened to Perry’s concession speech and taken it to heart, taking a dive to protect the party. But the likelier explanation is that the Johnson/Weld scampaign was just a con game intended to route as much money as possible into a few selected bank accounts while keeping the LP small and marginal enough for future friends to come back for another dip into our wallets.”
BINGO!
This is the 3rd presidential election in a row where the Libertarian Party threw away a major opportunity. It is as though a conspiracy is taking place to make sure that the LP never really gets ahead and to prevent an actual libertarian message from getting out to the public.
Andrew the Tin-hat warrior: ” . . . . The antics and nomination of William Weld at the Libertarian National Convention in Orlando was a bigger embarrassment and disgrace to the Libertarian Party than 100 almost naked fat guys dancing on the stage would have been.
If you can’t understand why this is so, I can’t help you. . . . . ”
I just breathed a sigh of relief realizing that I don’t need help from a conspiracy theorist.
.
“Tony From Long Island
November 30, 2016 at 08:45
Andy the Delusional: ‘ . . . . That bullshit with Bill Weld at the convention in Orlando was probably the most disgusting, and embarrassing thing that I’ve witnessed in my 20 years as an LP member . . . . ‘
Not the almost naked fat guy gyrating on national television? Says a lot about you and your priorities. . . . but then again, you worship at the throne of Alex Jones, so . . .”
The antics and nomination of William Weld at the Libertarian National Convention in Orlando was a bigger embarrassment and disgrace to the Libertarian Party than 100 almost naked fat guys dancing on the stage would have been.
If you can’t understand why this is so, I can’t help you.
“Whether the others in Orlando were better candidates is a debate that could go on forever, but none of them would have broken 1%.”
The LP could have nominated a potted plant and a bottle of vitamin water and that ticket would have received more publicity, and more votes, than any LP ticket in past history. Any plausible ticket other than Johnson/Weld would have likely done 7-10% of the vote.
Hell, Johnson and Weld — a wallflower establishment ticket in a circus anti-establishment year — had to bust their asses to avoid first the 15% debate cut and then the 5% welfare check cut. A couple of times I wondered if they had listened to Perry’s concession speech and taken it to heart, taking a dive to protect the party. But the likelier explanation is that the Johnson/Weld scampaign was just a con game intended to route as much money as possible into a few selected bank accounts while keeping the LP small and marginal enough for future friends to come back for another dip into our wallets.
OK, he polled at 18%. What did he end up with?
Whether the others in Orlando were better candidates is a debate that could go on forever, but none of them would have broken 1%. Whatever you think of Johnson / Weld, many many more people know the word “libertarian” and might just look into it.
The idea is to grow the party, right? If someone looks into it and doesn’t like what they see, you wouldn’t have gotten them with Mr. Perfect either.
I discovered the LP via C-SPAN (a speech by Andre Marrou) when I was 18 in 1992, but the average voter doesn’t even know what C-SPAN is. They do, however, know what CNN is and MSNBC and ABC News etc. They wouldn’t have seen any of the others from Orlando (not to mention the non-existent Mr. Perfect) on those large platforms.
Tony,
Dancing nearly-naked fat guy — his name is James Weeks II — ran for county sheriff in Michigan and polled more than 18%.
“You voted for Johnson / Weld (and advertised that fact) yet you sometimes minimize their candidacy. ”
They were terrible candidates who ran a terrible campaign. Apart from the guy in the cavalry uniform, each and every opponent of Johnson/Weld for the party’s presidential and vice-presidential nominations were better candidates if for no other reason than that they would have run for the party which nominated them instead of against the party which nominated them.
Yes, I voted for them — because they were the best of the bad lot on my ballot. In a year full of terrible candidates, they weren’t quite as disgusting and evil as Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. Yay them.
TK – you defend the “almost naked fat guy” all you want, but his stupidity removed any momentum the LP may have been gaining in being taken seriously.
And what campaign are you referring to? Sometimes you surprise me. You voted for Johnson / Weld (and advertised that fact) yet you sometimes minimize their candidacy. Your post could have been made by Andy.
The almost naked fat guy gyrating on national television, in addition to being one of only a few convention events worth the time and cost of attending or even watching on TV (the only others that come to mind are passing an anti-death-penalty plank, Perry’s “concession” speech, and the re-election of Nick Sarwark as chair), is:
1) An actual libertarian; who
2) Polled about five times the percentage in his campaign that Johnson/Weld did in theirs.
Andy: ” . . . . . I also do not like the way that Petersen dismissed “conspiracy theorists” . . . . ”
Of course you wouldn’t. He was attacking nut jobs like you.
Andy the Delusional: ” . . . . That bullshit with Bill Weld at the convention in Orlando was probably the most disgusting, and embarrassing thing that I’ve witnessed in my 20 years as an LP member . . . . ”
Not the almost naked fat guy gyrating on national television? Says a lot about you and your priorities. . . . but then again, you worship at the throne of Alex Jones, so . . .
tk, unfortunately, in a political environment, things don’t neatly boil down to X or Y. There are puts and takes with both W, X, Y, and Z, as that’s how negotiation works.
Thanks, I understand that UBI and NIT are not the same things. I actually find the citizen’s dividend the most attractive of that universe, which, using a Georgist construct, is not “welfare” but is instead justice approximating.
All three have many advantages over the current stew, from my peaceful lessarchist perspective. None are perfect, in theory and in practice.
Only AndyLand is perfect, and I don’t see AndyLand happening anytime soon. 😉 Then again, I believe you have cited AndyLand’s nativism as being sub-optimal from your perspective.
dL: UBI would not reduce political subjugation. It would increase it b/c it would be conditional. It would be used as a means for behavioral social control. Piss tests, behavior surveillance…same crap they do today for low-income welfare transfers.
me: Again, a possible trade-off. If you expect the world to bend to the will of dL, you are bound to be disappointed. Any change in the civil order may involve improvements and some sub-optimal elements.
UBI has some appeal to me on three grounds:
1) I would rather see “welfare” paid directly to all rather than through bureaucratic approaches.
2) If one adopts a Georgist construct, something like UBI would be just, since citizens would be viewed as the rightful owners of the natural resources prior to those resources being developed.
3) Since jurisprudence is imperfect and since it requires capital to achieve justice, UBI is a baseline compensation for the inevitable failure of the justice system that underpins a free society.
Bob,
You’re conflating two things. All “no particular orderism” says is that if X and Y are both good ideas and there’s an opportunity for Y, NPOists won’t refuse that opportunity just because X hasn’t been accomplished yet. It has precisely nothing to say about the non-aggression principle, or about whether Universal Basic Income/Negative Income Tax are good ideas.
UBI and NIT are also two completely different things.
Negative Income Tax is just a method: If the welfare state sets the standard of benefits as designed to aid those with an income of less than $X, those who earn less than $X get a check to bring their income up to $X, as opposed to an offer of enrollment in e.g. food stamps, Medicaid, etc. Ceteris paribus not a terrible idea, but it doesn’t really do anything vis a vis ending the welfare state.
Universal Basic Income is just a method, too, but it’s a method that enrolls every man, woman and child as a welfare state client — a move in the wrong direction if the goal is to get rid of the welfare state.
dL: What it doesn’t DOESN”T do is get rolled back.
me: Simply not factual. There have been times when government has gotten smaller, ATC. American Revolution, collapse of the Soviet Union, and China these past 20 years are three cases where the net incidence of government coercion has been reduced.
But, OK, do you expect global 100% Big Brother-style government control is inevitable? If so, any time soon?
“Quaaludes User
November 29, 2016 at 23:32
‘he’s not an American citizen. He’s a citizen of the United Kingdom.’
I heard he could get a birth certificate saying he was born in Hawaii.”
Maybe he could borrow Barack Obama’s. He is on his way out of office, so he won’t be needing it anymore.
“he’s not an American citizen. He’s a citizen of the United Kingdom.”
I heard he could get a birth certificate saying he was born in Hawaii.
“Anthony Dlugos
November 29, 2016 at 22:48
haha. you’d prefer jacking off to one-half of one percent?”
Votes were up for pretty much all minor party and independent candidates this year. Jill Stein got over 1.4 million votes.
You are just ASSUMING that other candidates would have received less votes than Johnson/Weld. It is possible that they would have received more, but of course we have no way of knowing for sure.
What we do know is that Johnson/Weld watered down the Libertarian message down so much that it is questionable as to whether they even had a libertarian platform, and as if this was not bad enough, they were quite frankly not very good messengers for whatever their message was (Aleppo anyone?).
Also, getting votes is meaningless if there is not a strong libertarian message behind it. We are not in this to get votes for the sake of getting votes. We are in this to spread the libertarian message and move society in a libertarian direction. If just getting votes for the sake of getting votes were the goal, we probably would have gotten a lot more vote if we had run Bernie Sanders or Ted Cruz for President. Neither would have spread a libertarian message, but by golly, they’d have been likely to get us more votes than Johnson/Weld did.
‘dL
November 29, 2016 at 22:38
There were a lot of Losertarians who were willing to overlook apostasies from jokers like AWP and McAfee
My definition of a losertarian is a dork jacking his dick off over 4% of the vote…’
Johnson/Weld got something like 3.2% of the vote.
Given the dynamics of the election this year, the vote potential for the Libertarian ticket was higher than this.
haha. you’d prefer jacking off to one-half of one percent?
“Quaaludes User
November 29, 2016 at 22:12
Is Paul Joseph Watson old enough to run?”
This poster is likely a troll, but I’ll respond anyway.
I don’t know how old Paul Joseph Watson is, but there is a bigger issue that would prevent him from running, and that is that he’s not an American citizen. He’s a citizen of the United Kingdom.
“Anthony Dlugos
November 29, 2016 at 22:16
who the hell is Paul Joseph Watson?”
He’s a reporter for Infowars.com.
My definition of a losertarian is a dork jacking his dick off over 4% of the vote…
Comply or die is not a trade-off. jezuz(face palm)
Yeah..in other words, your own wishful thinking. What it doesn’t DOESN”T do is get rolled back. You know, I may think pigs ought to fly. But they don’t.
UBI would not reduce political subjugation. It would increase it b/c it would be conditional. It would be used as a means for behavioral social control. Piss tests, behavior surveillance…same crap they do today for low-income welfare transfers.
Conditional UBI is evil b/c it is social control. Comply or die/command-obey. If you don’t get the subsidy, its much harder to make ends meet in an even more artificially corrupt political economy.
Well I imagine you don’t see it b/c you are fully dog trained. You challenge nothing and pose no challenge. You do what you are told. When they tell you to jump, you jump. Indeed, you jump and then while in midair wax poetic about how your compliant obedience is merely a reasonable trade-off.
He supplies the goods.
who the hell is Paul Joseph Watson?
Is Paul Joseph Watson old enough to run?
Paul Joseph Watson has some harsh words for Jill Stein.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEScRn-nPvY
I saw a lot of that in Orlando, Mr. Capozzi.
There were a lot of Losertarians who were willing to overlook apostasies from jokers like AWP and McAfee that they would NEVER overlook in more experienced candidates as long as it was counterbalanced by a complete lack of qualifications/experience in office.
Petersen was also anti-choice, repeatedly presented himself as someone who could win over Teabaggers, Paulbots and Cruz supporters, and called Gary Johnson a drug dealer several times, something which should have disqualified him in the eyes of the delegates given the LP’s long-standing opposition to the drug war even in the face of ridicule from mainstream politicians lo’ these many years since the party’s founding. And of course one could write a 5,000 word post on the ridicule he directed at the NAP, the LP platform, and anarchists in general.
But, of course, he has something that the dogmatic salivate at like Pavlovian dogs: a shame-free ability to point out apostasies in those the dogmatists want to ostracize.
Its shockingly easy to get 20% of the delegates at an LP convention to support you. Show up with a blank slate resume, pick out the most qualified candidate and attack him. Bingo, 20%.
“Anthony Dlugos
November 29, 2016 at 21:30
I’m supporting Vermin Supreme/Quaaludes User at the 2020 Convention.”
Vermin Supreme might very well end up being a better candidate than Johnson or Weld.
“robert capozzi
November 29, 2016 at 21:30
aj, this surprises me. You liked AP’s ‘Penny Plan’? That wasn’t what you call “mealy mouthed”? (I found it thoughtful.)”
Now that you mention that, I do recall Petersen mentioning a Penny Plan, but I am not recalling what it was. Can you refresh my memory on this so I don’t have to look it up?
I liked Petersen’s pyramid policy.
aj, this surprises me. You liked AP’s “Penny Plan”? That wasn’t what you call “mealy mouthed”? (I found it thoughtful.)
I’m supporting Vermin Supreme/Quaaludes User at the 2020 Convention.
There’s a good chance that I’d have been willing to put my differences with Austin Petersen aside if he had been nominated.
I do not like the way Petersen dismissed the NAP (Non-Aggression Princple), but having said this, Petersen did appear to have a pretty good minarchist platform (certainly better than the mealy mouthed watered down drivel from Johson/Weld). I also do not like the way that Petersen dismissed “conspiracy theorists” (although ironically, Petersen brought up a “conspiracy theory” about Pearl Harbor during the main debate at the national convention), and I strongly disagree with his views about what happened on 9/11, however, IF Petersen did not make a big deal about attacking “conspiracy theorists” after the convention if he had been nominated, I may have given him some support post nomination.
Andy is right. Would love to see Alex Jones as LP presidential candidate in 2020. Andy Jacobs for VP?
dL: Comply or die(command-obey) is not exactly the same type of tradeoff as the opportunity cost economic type.
Me: True, it’s not the same sort of trade-off, but it seems we agree on the obvious: that it is a trade-off. Although I’m discussing less of what the government DOES, and more about approaches to rolling back government. Things like the negative income tax or UBI might change the public-choice dynamics for shifting power and resources away from the political class to the rest of us.
However, no particular order NAPsters would reject such approaches as “evil.”
I share some of your concerns, btw, about the “security bureaucracy,” but if you are saying the US is currently totalitarian, I’m just not seeing it.
Anthony Dlugos: “if you think that gives me zero credibility while you enthusiastically support a lunatic like Alex Jones, well, like I said, you must be on Quaaludes.”
I’d vote for Alex Jones over Bob Barr or Wayne Root or Gary Johnson or Jim Gray or Bill Weld any day.
I don’t think that Alex Jones is interested in running, so I doubt you have anything to worry about here.
“Anthony Dlugos
November 29, 2016 at 19:39
Since I am 47 and expect to be around for many more presidential election cycles, part of me actually wouldn’t mind seeing a screwball like Petersen win the nomination, and watch it crash and burn. ”
I’m not the world’s biggest fan of Austin Petersen. I don’t know him personally, but he’s taken a few stands and done a few things with which I do not agree. Having said this, Petersen would likely have been a better candidate than Gary Johnson. He’s a better public speaker, a better debater, and he’s better in interviews. Petersen also sounds better on the issues than Gary Johnson.
Really, any combination of the main candidates for President and Vice President at the convention would have been better than Johnson/Weld.
“Anthony Dlugos
November 29, 2016 at 19:30
Andy,
I did not say I would DEFINITELY support Romney in the very unlikely event that he switched parties to the LP before the 2020 Convention. I said I would hear him out and try to determine if his conversion was genuine, which one would think it might be if he actually did go about changing from a Republican to a Democrat.
In any case, even if I did say I would definitely support a Libertarian Mitt Romney running for our nomination,”
You said that if Mitt Romney joined the Libertarian Party at the 2020 national convention, and said that he wanted to be our candidate for President, that he’d shoot up to being your top choice for the nomination.
” if you think that gives me zero credibility while you enthusiastically support a lunatic like Alex Jones, well, like I said, you must be on Quaaludes.”
You supported Barr/Root. You supported Johnson/Grey. You supported Johnson/Weld. You are a “shiny badge” worshipper who thinks that we should all bend over and kiss the ass of anyone who shows up in the party with fancy titles/credentials next to their name, even if the person in question has little to no record of libertarian activism, and displays little to no knowledge about what it means to be a libertarian.
That bullshit with Bill Weld at the convention in Orlando was probably the most disgusting, and embarrassing thing that I’ve witnessed in my 20 years as an LP member. A room full of REAL Libertarians would have boo’d that asshole Weld out of the convention hall.
Since I am 47 and expect to be around for many more presidential election cycles, part of me actually wouldn’t mind seeing a screwball like Petersen win the nomination, and watch it crash and burn. Especially now that we have something of a baseline of media attention/votes/donations with Johnson 2016.
Folks like Amash, Massie, and others we aren’t even thinking of will depend largely on how badly/well things go under Trump. The worse they go, the more likely we are to have some legitimate choices.
Republican to a Libertarian, that is.
Andy,
I did not say I would DEFINITELY support Romney in the very unlikely event that he switched parties to the LP before the 2020 Convention. I said I would hear him out and try to determine if his conversion was genuine, which one would think it might be if he actually did go about changing from a Republican to a Democrat.
In any case, even if I did say I would definitely support a Libertarian Mitt Romney running for our nomination, if you think that gives me zero credibility while you enthusiastically support a lunatic like Alex Jones, well, like I said, you must be on Quaaludes.
We probably won’t even really start getting an idea who all’s interested until 12-18 months before the nomination. An Amash or Massie would probably be strong contenders. But the last time a Republican congressman came sniffing around it took him six ballots to get nominated, and even Johnson/Weld got pushed to two ballots each. So perhaps at some point Republicans will start seeking their own party’s nomination instead of ours.
I’m thinking the LP 2020 nominee will end up being Congressman Justin Amash. He’s already feuding with Trump, and something tells me he’ll jump ship. A lot of people seem to think it will be Petersen, but I’m skeptical.
Don, in regard to Trump, hope for the best, but be prepared for the worst.
I remain skeptical myself, so I will not be surprised if Trump ends up disappointing some people.
+1 to what Andy wrote. That said, if Trump does even 20% of what he says he is going to do and he keeps us out of new wars/nation building, then I will support Trump in 2020 if he runs for re-election (which of course presumes he hasn’t been assassinated … a big assumption).
Tom, there was no Libertarian Party presidential ticket this year. There were a couple of LINOs (Libertarians In Name Only) who HIJACKED the LP nomination by flooding the convention with delegates who were a) not really libertarians either, or b) well meaning but gullible libertarians.
There was nothing principled about voting for Johnson/Weld because Johnson/Weld do not have any principles.
I do not buy into this “my party right or wrong” bullshit. I put principle over party. Blind loyalty to any organization is foolish.
I am not a person who throws a fit if a candidate does not agree with me on every detail of every issue. I will still vote for a candidate if I have small disagreements with them.
The problems with Johnson/Weld were not small. There were a LOT of things wrong with the Johnson/Weld ticket. Neither of them should have been nominated, and I am concerned about the long term damage they have done to the party and movement.
Andy: ” [Alex Jones] is very well informed. . . . ”
Quaaludes? Maybe PCP.
Jesse Ventura destroyed his credibility when he started the conspiracy garbage and associating with Alex Jones.
———————————————
Andy: ” . . . . he should bring me on his team as a campaign advisor. It would be one of the best campaigns ever. . . . ”
Is it possible for Even Alex Jones to lose his credibility? He has none, so probably not. Even you are more of a nut than he is.
If Alex Jones were to decide to run for President in 2020, he should bring me on his team as a campaign advisor. It would be one of the best campaigns ever.
Anthony Dlugos has gone on record saying that he would support Mitt Romney for the Libertarian Party’s presidential nomination in 2020. He’s also a Bill Weld Kool Aid drinker. Dlugos has zero credibility.
“Alex Jones is also a good public speaker. He is very well informed.”
“Jones / Swann 2020 would be awesome.”
You must be on quaaludes.
I just thought of another good choice for VP for Alex Jones for President. Ben Swann. Swann has been a guest on The Alex Jones Show so they already know eachother.
Jones / Swann 2020 would be awesome.
Should read Ventura above.
Tony, you are a lost cause.
Alex Jones is anti-Federal Reserve, anti-income tax, anti-military imperialism, anti-domestic spying, anti-War on Drugs, anti-United Nations. He is vehemently pro-gun rights. He’s pro-free speech. He’s pro-transparencry in government. He supports jury nullification of victimless crimes. He opposes corporate cronyism.
Alex Jones is also a good public speaker. He is very well informed. He’s a good debater. He’s already got a rabid following. He’s already proven that he can raise money. He is a self made man who started with nothing and has built up a large alternative media operation. He already has a professional looking website, a full time staff, and thousands of videos on YouTube. He has built up a long list of contacts that include Ron Paul, Andrew Napolitano, Lew Rockwell, Doug Casey, Jesse Venture, etc…. The list of people he has interviewed over the years is long, and some of these people would be valuable allies to have for a campaign.
If Alex Jones decided to run for President, I would probably support him, and if he decided that he wanted to run for the Libertarian Party’s presidential nomination, I would probably be willing to help him obtain it (I could certainly warn him of who the toxic people are in the LP).
It really would not matter what some of the naysayers thought. Alex Jones could do a money bomb and raise several million dollars before the national convention. He could use his website to recruit plenty of delegates. He’d probably get some big endorsements, like from Ron Paul, etc…
I would just love to see the expressions on some of the wussytarians faces after Alex Jones captured the LP nomination.
I bet that Alex Jones would pull out some heavy hitters for the VP nomination. How about Andrew Napolitano for Vice President? Jones / Napolitano 2020 would be an awesome ticket. Jesse Venture might even get off the side lines and throw his name in the race for VP. Jesse would NOT be among my top choices, but he’d be a heck of a lot better than Bill Weld. I would much rather see Napolitano or somebody else who is better than Venture on issues/philosophy though.
https://youtu.be/APuNlJOINWc
Still waiting to hear all about that “freedom” Alex jones is fighting for Andy! I’m on the edge of my seat.
Alex Jones would be a better candidate for President than anyone that the LP has run in a long time. He’s already got some name recognition, and a big fundraising base as well.
Alex Jones for President could be big.
Yes, because a member of the Libertarian Party voting for the Libertarian Party’s presidential ticket is just beyond the pale.
Aww, but what about me? I voted for Gov. Johnson too! Tell me I have no room to criticize you.
But don’t worry, I will anyway. You set yourself up for it so well with what comes out of your fingertips . . . that is unless you only type with one finger hunt and peck style!
I heard that Alex Jones knows that people who post conspiracy theories on otherwise intellectual message boards need to have their tin foil hats adjusted. The government can not pierce the old ones.
Tom, considering that you voted for Gary Johnson and Bill Weld, you have no room to criticize anyone. anyone.
Andy the nutjob: ” . . . . Jones has a long history of being a hardcore freedom fighter. . . . I would like to see Alex Jones run for President in 2020. . . . ”
And what “freedom:” would that be? Freedom from reality? Please tell me what freedom Alex Jones is fighting for.
It is sometimes hard to stay on this site because as much as I like the real discussion, the people who are so oblivious to reality are hard to take.
—————————————————————————-
Jill, “mainstream media” is made up nonsense. There is media. That’s it. Some is better than others and some has fewer people who watch / listen / read.
I said previously: “I’d be willing to bet he’s [Alex Jones] at least as truthful as CNN, Fox, MSNBC, and some of the other big news outlets. Seriously. . . . . ”
I stand by my statement. I believe the mainstream media lies to us constantly. Much of what they tell us is utter fiction. I know I’ve pointed out many of their untruths previously, so I don’t feel like doing it again.
Comply or die(command-obey) is not exactly the same type of tradeoff as the opportunity cost economic type. The sheer enormity of the US security bureaucracy betrays any normative liturgical spouting about what politics is supposed to be or OUGHT to be. Totalitarianism is what totalitarianism does….it what it does is manufacture very large unaccountable security bureaucracies. And the US has largest of them all..ever…global in jurisdiction. Commit a crime against Amerika! where are you going to run? How many countries on globe were were willing to take Snowden in and endure the wrath of Amerika!? That’s real totalitarianism, bitch…
“I would like to see Alex Jones run for President in 2020.”
And I would like to see whatever COINTELPRO agency you work for re-assign you to disrupt some other movement. Between the 9/11 nutjobbery, the immigration authoritarianism, etc., you’ve long since blown your cover.
I would not put Alex Jones and Donald Trump in the same category. Jones has a long history of being a hardcore freedom fighter. Donald Trump has no such history, and it remains to be seen what he is going to do once he gets into office.
I would like to see Alex Jones run for President in 2020.
Don Ho: ” . . . . Quite frankly, IMO, such feelings about Trump and/or Jones is more a reflection on the person that has those feelings than on Jones/Trump. And not a good reflection, as the invectives spewed by the hater are far worse than what Jones/Trump could ever be in person. . . . ”
Yeah, it’s somehow irrational to dislike purveyors of garbage to the masses. it reflects poorly on me. You’re serious?
…………………………………………
Don Merideth also said: ” . . . . Trump is a showman . . . ”
Just what this nation needs as a leader to portray to the rest of the world . . .
………………………………………………
Don Knotts also said: ” . . . Trump and Jones actually accomplish things – they change the narrative. . . . ”
“Changing the narrative” is all well and good if you do it with ethical and intellectual integrity. The two citizens you mention have none. it’s even worse for Jones, because he KNOWS what he’s doing. The other person is not as bright as he’d like to believe he is.
It appears that Alex Jones is in the same category as Trump. A person either supports Jones/Trump, or believes that Jones/Trump is the lowest form of protozoa/Satan incarnate/fraud. Quite frankly, IMO, such feelings about Trump and/or Jones is more a reflection on the person that has those feelings than on Jones/Trump. And not a good reflection, as the invectives spewed by the hater are far worse than what Jones/Trump could ever be in person.
Yes, Trump is a showman. Jones is a showman. They say provocative things that are outlandish but still exhibit truthiness, sometimes more, sometimes less. That’s how you get noticed in today’s beige main stream media controlled world. It works. The bland pablum emitted by folks like Gary Johnson is simply ignored, and therefore they accomplish nothing. Trump and Jones actually accomplish things – they change the narrative. I’ll support those who get results every time over someone with whom I am more philosophically comfortable with, even if the results are only part of what I hope for.
Jill: ” . . . . I’d be willing to bet he’s [Alex Jones] at least as truthful as CNN, Fox, MSNBC, and some of the other big news outlets. Seriously. . . . . ”
Jill, sometimes you make posts that I am in 100% agreement with. We truly do have some views in common. But then you say something like this out of left field.
It’s perfectly fine to seek your news from sources other than the ones which are most viewed. However, you do know that Alex Jones is not “news.” He is as much a con man and huckster than the “person” who just received more electoral votes than the other candidates.
And yes, I know you don’t really listen much to him. You have made that clear, but he can not be compared to “news” outlets good or bad.
He is a purveyor of crap gobbled up by mind-numbed drones ready to slurp it up. He is no different than someone else with the name Jones – Jim.
This is a man who believes that every mass shooting is a hoax, that Scalia was murdered, the government has a “weather machine,” that juice boxes make children gay, Michelle Obama is transgender, Pres. Obama got sworn in on a Quran, 9/11 was a hoax, Atheists worship satan (I can personally attest that this one is false), same-sex marriage is a eugenics plot, Hillary has holes in her tongue, Y2K, mass produced FEMS coffins . . . .
Need I go on? This guy is not news, nor is he putting forth Truth. Now, this is not to say that every word he utters is false. Don’t go ahead and give me an example of something he said that is true. I’m sure there are plenty.
Alex Jones is bottom of the barrel garbage who is just another example of how there is a sucker born every minute! No wonder the person who just got more electoral votes loves “the poorly educated.”
TK, totalitarianism is a political order. I don’t see it as “politics “, but rather the lack of politics.
The political scene in the US is degrading from my perspective, but we’ve a way to go before the T word becomes relevant in the US.
AJ: It is important to have goals. If we don’t have an end goal, then we don’t know where we are going.
ME: Are you sure? My sense is we are going more-archist. I don’t have any long-term goals other than Peace on Earth. I advocate lessarchism. At some point, I may advocate the status quo, or possibly even a touch more government.
Why do you think that’s a problem for me?
Totalitarianism is a variety of politics which has been implemented at various times and in various places — thus establishing the existence of at least one variety of politics which does not function on compromise/”trade-offs.”
Thus your claim that what makes NAP-compliant libertarians “sure to lose” is that they reject compromise/”trade-offs” would have to be elaborated to be of any value. On its own, it’s clearly false.
Don Quixote: ” . . . . “2. NWO not a real thing” Really? What rock have you been hiding under? UNESCO. Agenda 21. The Kyoto Protocol. NAFTA. TPP. TTIP. The Paris Agreement. All supported by Bush/Clinton/Bush/Obama, by the banksters, by big corporations and by lefties everywhere who live by the creed that Nationalism = bad, Globalism = good. . . . ”
Yawn . . . yeah, it’s terrible that nations work together rather than act like it’s still the Dark Ages.
So, you think that trying to reduce carbon emissions is some sort of “New World Order” nefarious conspiracy? Are you related to Andy?
TK, totalitarianism is not politics, especially in America.
NAP-sterism is not “evil,” just ill advised, based on unworkable premises.
Quoth RC,
“NAPsterism seems well intentioned enough to me. I was well intentioned when I was a NAPster. However, it’s an attempt to play a game (politics) without being willing to actually PLAY the game. Since NAPsterism does not allow for trade-offs, NAPsters are sure to lose, since it’s a dogma that doesn’t allow for the game to be played, only complained about.”
Kim Jong Un disagrees. Fidel Castro would disagree if he hadn’t kicked the bucket, as would Mao, Stalin, Hitler and every other totalitarian political figure/organization whose political systems were based entirely on having their way entirely, 100%, no compromises, no tradeoffs, gulag or garotte for anyone who has a problem with that.
Apparently in your world, only the evil are allowed to have principles that they’re not willing to compromise and still be “serious about politics.” Which, if true, would be an inestimable advantage to the evil.
dL 23:54, funny, you say “no,” and yet you proceed to say that yes, in life we make tradeoffs, and in politics, tradeoffs are made, too. There are different sorts of tradeoffs, yes, principals and agents — sure.
Yes, politics is a pretty ugly game, and it probably attracts a large number of psychopaths. Whether all pols are psychopaths, I dunno. Whether some who engage in the game with ill intent, I’m skeptical.
IIRC, many corporations and other institutions attract psychopaths as well, and I’ve met my share.
NAPsterism seems well intentioned enough to me. I was well intentioned when I was a NAPster. However, it’s an attempt to play a game (politics) without being willing to actually PLAY the game. Since NAPsterism does not allow for trade-offs, NAPsters are sure to lose, since it’s a dogma that doesn’t allow for the game to be played, only complained about.
Like the Soapbox Lunatic, some onlookers may resonate with aspects of NAPsterism, but for the most part, few sign up for a movement where the core belief doesn’t allow for virtually any give and take. We can understand why, since most intuitively recognize that the game involves trade-offs, making NAPsterism a non-starter.
I’ve only really paid attention to Alex Jones once. I can put up with a certain amount of annoying pomposity, but not when it’s leavened with significant amounts of being a lying sack of shit.
I don’t listen to Jones because I don’t care for his personality. I remember that most of his articles were based on truth, though. What is it people think he says that isn’t true?
I’d be willing to bet he’s at least as truthful as CNN, Fox, MSNBC, and some of the other big news outlets. Seriously.
Well, it might be funny if that’s what I wrote. What I wrote is that his ability to become a millionaire at what he does demonstrates that he is not exactly a raving lunatic. The dupes that support him are another matter.
“dL
November 29, 2016 at 00:25
this man is sane?
Reportedly, Jones has a net worth of ~10 million. Crazy like a fox. His listeners(particularly the paying ones), on the other hand, might be dumb as hens.”
According to the website celebritynetworth, Alex Jones has a net worth of $8 million. This is PEANUTS compared to mainstream talking heads like Rush Limbaugh, who has a net worth of $300 million, and Glenn Beck, who has a net worth of $105 million.
Alex Jones started out back in the early 1990’s as an activist doing a public access TV show in Austin, Texas, and he has build an alternative media mini empire. He did this without selling out principles. He was offered lucrative deals years ago, with the provision that he not talk about certain subjects, and he turned it down. He got kicked off of a bunch of radio stations for saying that 9/11 was an inside job in the aftermath of 9/11/01.
I consider Alex Jones to be an American success story and a true American hero.
Funny how self professed Libertarians would criticize somebody for making money. It cost money to run a media operation, plus, the guy has to make a living. What’s he supposed to do? He’s got a family to support. Are they supposed to live like paupers? If Alex Jones was just out for money, he could have sold out years ago and he’d have a hell of a lot more money right now than he has.
I met Alex Jones at an event in Los Angeles back in 2006. I spoke to him briefly and I saw him interacting with other people, and he struck me as being a genuine dude.
Reportedly, Jones has a net worth of ~10 million. Crazy like a fox. His listeners(particularly the paying ones), on the other hand, might be dumb as hens.
I think the general point is that American political class has little moral standing over the boogeymen we are constantly fed. Since 1960, the American political class has sanctioned the murder/deaths of millions of civilians overseas, the refugee displacement of millions overseas and has enacted domestic laws that have imprisoned millions of Americans at an incarceration rate exceeded in modern history only by Stalin and Hitler. Not to mention the boogeyman monsters often have been supported, indirectly or directly, by the Americans at one time or another.
Castro occupied the top of the American totem pole of boogeymen b/c he was the one rare bird that generally was not under the thumb of the American security bureaucracy. Of course, none of this excuses Castro who indeed was a tyrant/dictator. But it should be noted that his longevity in no small part can be attributed to American policy that has the unintended effect(or perhaps intentional) of keeping him in power. I imagine if the US had normalized relations w/ Cuba after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Castro would have spent the last 20 years of his life w/ his old pal Gorbachev on the lecture circuit.
No, politics is not similar to our day-to-day lives. In your day-to-day life, there is no principal-agent problem with regard to the tradeoff you might make. These tradeoffs generally reinforce empathetic behavior. In politics, however, politicians trade favors among themselves or bid out privileges to others(Tullock Auction) and externalize the costs onto the population. Those type of “tradeoffs” reinforce psychopathic behavior. For example, Senator A trades support for Senator B’s Patriot Act in exchange for B’s support of A’s bill to grant monopoly privilege to corporation/industry C.
In reality, the government is controlled day-to-day by the security bureaucracy . This is evidenced by the Snowden revelations that didn’t make a squat of difference in “the congress.” Indeed, the majority of them showed their true stripes by more or less acting as surrogate defenders of the security bureaucracy. Note the wikipedia entry for Five Eyes:
“Despite the impact of Snowden’s disclosures, some experts in the intelligence community believe that no amount of global concern or outrage will affect the Five Eyes relationship, which to this day remains one of the most comprehensive known espionage alliances in history.”
The American people have as much say/control re: the US security bureaucracy as the Russian people had over the Soviet one. “The government is us” is Sunday School liturgy perpetuated by those with either a vested financial interest in the status quo or a vested religiosity in the state as the primary hopeful means to bring about their preferred version of social control. This is not even debatable.
Well, I didn’t have Castro as an option on my ballot earlier this month, and even with Weld’s affection for Clinton, he was still far and away the best choice in Orlando.
Actually, Castro as Johnson’s preferred candidate in Orlando was probably the only way I would have considered anyone other than Weld. You know. because the rest of them were even nuttier than Castro. At least he had the guts to take up arms and spend some time in jail.
“Clinton = Castro?”
Castro was a dictator for more than half a century. Formally he is thought to have ordered (or been in charge of people who ordered) 15-18,000 killings. Some sources hold him responsible for as many as 80,000 killings. Which is probably toward the high end of killings Clinton was similarly responsible for in a tenth as many years as Secretary of State.
this man is sane?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUEy55r49fY
For every thing Jones gets right, he misses or says something ludicrous 100 x 100 times, taken to the hundredth power and multiplied by infinity.
He’s a moron no reasonable person can take seriously, and I can’t believe I have to type that here.
“You certainly didn’t miss it when Weld sang the praises of Hillary Clinton. I remember you discussing it.”
Clinton = Castro?
Don,
You write: “Ron Paul, Rand Paul, Lew Rockwell, Stefan Molyneux, Larry Pratt, Roger Stone, Aaron Russo”
Of those seven names, there’s precisely one I’d cross the street to piss on if I saw him on fire, and that one is dead.
TK – yep, Mencken was spot on.
I really don’t get it why folks here have a problem with Alex Jones. He was a very strong supporter of Ron Paul for the last 20 years (the entirety of Jones’ public career). Here are some of the regular guests on Alex Jones’ radio program: Ron Paul, Rand Paul, Lew Rockwell, Stefan Molyneux, Larry Pratt, Roger Stone, Aaron Russo and many more in the libertarianish world. Matt Drudge showed up unannounced in Austin at the Infowars studio in March 2016 and did an hour long interview that is the only interview Drudge has done in years. Alex Jones’ has had a couple of very important interviews with Richard Stallman (if you’re a computer geek, you know him). And the 2001 interview with Charlton Heston was a classic.
Alex Jones is unique. You can’t find his mix of constitutionalists/libertarians anywhere else. Period.
And just for the fun of it, his interview live on CNN with Piers Morgan was the highest rated program Morgan ever had. CNN had to usher Jones out of the studio one segment before scheduled because Jones was eviscerating Morgan.
Readers here might enjoy this 2016 interview with Lew Rockwell – http://www.infowars.com/lew-rockwell-the-truth-about-trump/
Tk: As it relates to the organization of society, the form of libertarianism you call “NAPsolutism” is simply a standard against which to measure law. That is, a society is “more” or “less” libertarian depending on how closely its laws, both customary and codified, conform to the non-aggression principle.
Me: I dropped NAPsolutism for NAPsterism about a year ago, as you convinced me that NAPsolutism is a bit overstated.
Measuring law bumps up against your oft-cited calculation problem. Many laws are simply lines in the sand — often evolving ones at that — that facilitate a civil society. Most importantly, this includes the matter of what constitutes “property rights.” Mixing labor with the soil sounds good and fair, but how rights are codified could go in a lot of directions in terms of application.
Since that is so, measurement in an intra-construct game. If, say, the Construct that was adopted for the 20th century had been along the lines that Henry George had suggested, the measurement you want to make might look very different. UBI might be the norm, for example.
TK: Are you suggesting that a society’s laws cannot be organized around, or measured by, any principle or standard?
Me: See above. Yes, intra-construct, on single issues, probably. Politics, however, is not dissimilar to our individual lives, where we make trade-offs all day long. “No particular order” NAPsterism does NOT, as I understand it, allow for trade-offs. For ex., a negative income tax to replace the welfare state would be “evil” for the NAPster. A flat tax with few/no tax preferences would be “evil” for the NAPster, since one person’s taxes might increase.
Tk: I think you’d get lots of disagreement on that, starting with Hammurabi.
Me: Quite a statement, coming from an advocate for statelessness!!! By all indications, you don’t seem to mind lots and lots and lots of disagreement, given your political views.
Don,
OK, in that case, yes, Jones appears to have been ahead of the pack in perceiving Trump’s candidacy as a practical application of Mencken’s dictum (“nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public”) to politics.
TK – again timeline is everything. I was referring to the primary, not the general election. Jones was saying **IN 2015** that he believed Trump could win it all. Jones supported Rand Paul until late in January when Paul dropped out. Note Alex’s interview with Trump was in 2015. Most pundits thought Jones was nuts to think that Trump could win the primary, and totally bonkers that Trump might ever be president.
“Jones truly believed Trump could win when everyone else was saying Trump’s candidacy was just a publicity stunt”
Not sure who this “everyone” is. As early as June 1st — and I think somewhat earlier, I predicted that Trump would carry every state Mitt Romney carried, as well as Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida. And over each of those states, at least one person called me insane or the equivalent for thinking Trump had a chance. I missed Wisconsin and Iowa, although I kind of expected Iowa by early November. I just wanted to stick by my early prediction.
Michael Moore predicted a Trump win on the same geography.
So did Darcy Richardson, who predicted that Trump would carry Wisconsin when the conventional wisdom was that Clinton didn’t even need to break a sweat there.
Tony wrote
“1. Not really going out on a limb” Timeframe is everything. Jones was saying this YEARS before anyone else, and he was widely excoriated for being a “conspiracy theorist” by saying such heresies as the CIA/Defense Dept. was supporting Wahhabist jihadists.
“2. NWO not a real thing” Really? What rock have you been hiding under? UNESCO. Agenda 21. The Kyoto Protocol. NAFTA. TPP. TTIP. The Paris Agreement. All supported by Bush/Clinton/Bush/Obama, by the banksters, by big corporations and by lefties everywhere who live by the creed that Nationalism = bad, Globalism = good.
“3. Trump what about him” Hello? Jones truly believed Trump could win when everyone else was saying Trump’s candidacy was just a publicity stunt, which folks like Rachel Maddow believed up until Nov 8.
“Did Johnson/Weld sing the praises of a tyrant and I misssed it?”
You certainly didn’t miss it when Weld sang the praises of Hillary Clinton. I remember you discussing it.
Tony,
I agree with you on the he various cable news anchors.
O’Reily is merely the most entertaining show of the bunch.
Thomas,
haha.
Did Johnson/Weld sing the praises of a tyrant and I misssed it?
Don Juan said : Alex Jones has been right on:
1. ISIS
2. NWO
3. Trump”
1. Not really going out on a limb
2. Not a real thing. (except in wrestling) Paranoia may destroya
3. What about him?
Oh yeah, even a broken clock is right twice a day.
“the thought that Hillary had to be stopped and that Trump was the only anti-establishment candidate”
Trying to put over Donald Trump as “anti-establishment” is an even bigger con than trying to put over Bob Barr as “libertarian.” He’s a rich, entitled, northeastern progressive corporate welfare queen — at least as “establishment” as Hillary Clinton or Jeb Bush.
Alex Jones started out supporting Rand Paul in the 2016 election cycle. He switched to Trump after Rand Paul’s dropped out of the race.
Alex Jones has not supported any mainstream Republican candidates before Trump (if you consider Donald Trump to be mainstream). Jones supported Ron Paul for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 and in 2012. Jones endorsed Gary Johnson for President in 2012 after Ron Paul was eliminated. Jones did not support Bob Barr for President in 2008 because he said that Barr was a CIA phony, but he has supported other Libertarian Party candidates like Michael Badnarik. I do not know if he ever officially endorsed him, but he did make positive statements about Harry Browne.
It should be pointed out that Alex Jones stated on multiple occasions that he had reservations about supporting Trump, but he thought that Hillary had to be stopped and that Trump was the only anti-establishment candidate who could do it. He has ADMITTED that some of Trump’s positions are bad, like his support of stop & frisk, but that he still thinks that Trump will be better than Hillary. Just within the last few days Jones said that if Trump gets into office and starts doing a lot of bad stuff that he is prepared to abandon his support for Trump.
“Jones has said (and I agree) that we might as well give Trump a chance to drain the swamp. The only alternative is Game Over, Thanks for Playing.”
And it’s Don Wills, coming up the inside to take an early lead in “Dumbest Thing Tom Knapp Has Read This Week.”
“Jones has said (and I agree) that we might as well give Trump a chance to drain the swamp. The only alternative is Game Over, Thanks for Playing.”
Monday afternoon and Don Wills is coming up the inside early with a burst of speed to take the lead in “Dumbest Thing Tom Knapp Has Read This Week.”
Tony asked “what has Alex Jones been right about.” Here are 3 biggies that come immediately to mind:
1. ISIS
2. NWO
3. Trump
The most important issue that Alex Jones was right on target very early is the “conspiracy theory” that Al Queda/ISIS/ISIL/Al Nusra/whatever were and continue to be equipped and trained by the CIA. Alex Jones started reporting this a decade ago. It has finally become commonly accepted even by the MSM that the ruse to differentiate the “moderate” jihadists from the “extreme” jihadists is one giant lie. If it wasn’t so sad, it’s been almost funny to watch the CIA-backed jihadists battling the US Army-backed jihadists in western Iraq and Syria. Read http://southfront.org if you want to know the truth of whats going on there.
Bilderberg, Bohemian Grove, the CFR, Davos and other globalist gatherings were completely off the radar and hidden from public scrutiny before Alex Jones exposed them. Infowars has replayed Daddy Bush’s comment about embracing the New World Order in his 1991 State of the Union address literally thousands of times until the phrase is now in the general lexicon, and is commonly accepted as one of the reasons Trump won.
Jones was also a very early supporter of Trump. Trump actually did a half hour interview live with Jones last December. Jones has always said he is suspicious of Trump, but at this point in our country’s death spiral, Jones has said (and I agree) that we might as well give Trump a chance to drain the swamp. The only alternative is Game Over, Thanks for Playing.
The history of Infowars tracks well with the famous quote from an unknown source:
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
Hoppean libertarian society==Hoppean Money Extraction Scheme from Individual Contributors to Finance Think Tank Budget. That certainly can and does exist. If we actually take it seriously, then the Hoppean libertarian society I described above, sans the moats, would be pretty similar to the Amish communities. We have Amish societies, hence the possibility for Hoppean societies certainly follows. I wouldn’t want to live in one, but to each his own. I do categorically reject Hoppean arguments that attempt to extend Hoppean eviction to the state as an legitimate exercise of the collective will of the productive class or the taxpayer class…and I scoff at any idea of Hoppean societies being anything other than pocket outliers, predicting the probability the world sans the state organizing into Hoppean communities to be of the same magnitude as large-scale organization into Amish societies.
RE: Laissez-Faire societies. Well, Laissez faire is illegal. And to those who say it is impossible, my response is “and that’s why we have the DHS, NSA, IRS, TSA, FBI, ATF, ICE, CIA, DIA, FCC, NGA, NRO, MI, MCIA, ONI, OICI, I&A, CGI, INR, TFI, USDA, DIG, USFS, LEI, BIS, OEE, NIST, NOAA, NMFS, OLE, DCIS, PFPA, DOE, HSS, FWS, USPS,
AID, NSF, DOE just to make sure!!!”
If you a priori reject the possibility of laissez faire society out of hand, why are you even a member of the LP? … other than to be nothing more than a provocateur? If you want to merely flap your lips about “net reduction in government,” then why don’t you join the Ted Cruz Party? That party could use some more members these days.
Anthony,
Take comfort. Eventually the Green bar will come to rest on Johnson/Weld and not be able to descend any further.
Wow. Every time I think the Greens can’t lower the bar any further, Stein proves me wrong.
I’m with you, RTAA. She’s exposing herself as someone who really is clueless.
I’m really glad I didn’t give her my vote.
I lost a lot of respect for Jill Stein after her recent praise for Castro: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/jill-stein-praises-fidel-castro-a-symbol-of-the-struggle-for-justice/article/2608223?custom_click=rss
Jill: ” . . . . I actually don’t consider Breitbart as one of my favorite sites. . . . I don’t use Infowars. . . . ”
There is hope for you yet, my friend.
I can’t really come up with any complaints with the sits you listed. I visit some of them from time to time. Try maybe once a week to watch just the first 15 minutes of Rachel Maddow. Then flip to Hannity if you want to gag.
I haven’t been able to stand more than 1 minutes of Hannity since the “election,” but I do flip on O’Rellly for a bit every now and then.
I’ve said several times in this thread that I don’t use Infowars.
I actually don’t consider Breitbart as one of my favorite sites. I like the Corbett Report, Antiwar.com. The Ron Paul Institute, Mintpress News, RT, Anti-Media, Ben Swann, Activist Post, and Free Thought Project. Those are the sites that comes to mind, but I consult others, too.
The point for me is to get several different viewpoints. Then I make a decision as to what I think is correct.
I’m not always right, but I’m right a big percent of the time. I’d put up some of the silly headlines from outlets like CNN, the Washington Post, Huffington Post and a few others, but have more pressing needs this morning.
I have never stated which sites I consult. Btw. . .. having 2.5 more votes than your opponent is a pretty good showing.
Please tell me what Alex Jones has been “right” on.
And I notice you had no defense of the disgusting headlines from Breitbart. Don’t worry, I’d be embarrassed too if I had to try and defend that filth.
Tony, you go right ahead and keep consulting your favorite sites, the ones who convinced you that Clinton would win by a landslide.
I’ll continue to consult the sites I like, who have been mostly right about the events of last month.
Andy the delusional: ” . . . .the more gun owners there are, the harder it will be for the government to take them, . . . ”
Oh, no. Here we go with the “government wants to take your guns . . . . ” yawn . . .
Ya gotta come up with a better reason to own guns because the ones you list are old worn-out talking points.
So, Andy, you want the government to “increase gun ownership?” That’s what you just wrote. . . you want the government to MAKE people own guns? Sounds pretty anti-libertarian to me.
There could be a mandatory gun ownership law and I still wouldn’t own one.
“robert capozzi
November 28, 2016 at 05:11
Fixing TK’s statement with only deletions:
‘Anyone who thinks you can have a libertarian society is a fucking idiot ;
That is, barring some cataclysm, or if Andy gets funding for AndyLand, the L society construct only works in the minds of latter-day Don Quixotes, I strongly suggest. Smaller government, however, is potentially achievable.”
It is important to have goals. If we don’t have an end goal, then we don’t know where we are going. The end goal to me, and I’d hope for everyone involved, is to have a society that has as much liberty as possible, which to me would mean an anarcho-capitalist voluntary society. We all may have different ideas about what the best way to get there is, but this ought to be the end goal.
I think that the most realistic way to achieve this, is for like minded libertarians to break off from the rest of society and form our own communities, kind of like the Free State Project in New Hampshire, but the problems there are that there are people who live in New Hampshire who oppose them, and there is nothing to stop more people who oppose them from moving into New Hampshire, and on top of this, there is still the problem of contending with the existing local, state, and federal government. I think that private cities (like the Liberstad project in Norway / http://www.liberstad.com/ ) and/or forming a new country somewhere (like the Liberland project / https://liberland.org/en/main/ ) might be more realistic options.
The present day USA may be too far gone to achieve real freedom, at least in our lifetimes. We should strive for as much as we can, but the best we may end up with is some kind of bastardize version of freedom, and this is if we work hard and our lucky. I think that Libertarians ought to spend a lot more time promoting things that can implemented outside of electoral politics (although it would be more effective if Libertarian Party candidates would bother to promote these things while on the campaign trail) such as jury nullification, alternative currencies, home schooling, increasing gun ownership (the more gun owners there are, the harder it will be for the government to take them, or to pass more gun control laws), etc…
I have not advocated overthrowing the EC “mid-election.” I advocate abolishing it now. I don’t need to read the essay of Mr. Epps to understand what the EC is and what Mr. Hamilton intended it to be.
If I read Mr. Epps’ essay, which I don’t really have the time to do here at work, I would probably not discover any new information. I know what the system IS. I simply disagree with the concept. I believe in one-person one-vote for every elected office. I’d also prefer IRV for every elected office, but that is a different topic.
Tom Knapp said: “Not trying to tell other people where to go is not “filling [society] with non-libertarians.” It’s just minding your own business.”
There is no right to go on to property that is already settled by other people. There is no right to collect welfare (note that statistics show that immigrants use welfare programs at a higher rate than the native born whose family has been here for generations). There is no right to use the political process to vote for politicians who push a socialist agenda (which statistics show that immigrants do at a higher rate than the native born who have been here for generations).
It is highly disingenuous to act like people are just moving and that’s all that there is to this issue, as if we live in some kind of libertarian utopia right now. People are not just moving from place to place, they are GETTING ON WELFARE, they are VOTING for Marxist politicians, they are FORCED INTEGRATING, and in some cases, THEY ARE COMMITTING CRIMES (the rape epidemic caused by mass Muslim migration from the Middle East and parts of Africa into European countries like Norway, Sweden, Germany, France, etc…., is a good example of this). If this were just a case of peaceful people moving from place to place, most people would not care. There is most definitely an agenda at play here, and this agenda DOES NOT HAVE A DAMN THING TO DO WITH PEACEFUL PEOPLE MOVING FROM PLACE TO PLACE.
People like Tom Knapp are completely unwilling to engage in any rational discussion on this issue, but for anyone reading who is willing to engage in rational discussion, I have NEVER advocated shutting out all immigrants. What I have advocated is differentiating between peaceful immigrants (you know, the one’s who actually abide by libertarian principles), and non-peaceful immigrants (as in the welfare parasites, the Marxist activists, the religious extremists, the criminals, etc…). The present system ATTRACTS too many of the WRONG kind of people (and if you do not believe this, examine the statistics). I have suggested cutting off all of the welfare programs, including shutting down the TAX PAYER FUNDED Refugee Resettlement Act (something which one would think that more Libertarians would actively oppose, since it is a TAX PAYER FUNDED PROGRAM), and using immigration contracts (that would stipulate things like no welfare, no Affirmative Action, no lobbying for foreign nations) to weed out the good immigrants from the bad immigrants. I also favor making it more difficult to become an American citizen. The Naturalization test should be made more difficult, and it should require a thorough understanding of the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution, and there should be a class in free market economics and a class on the right to keep and bear arms (which includes trips to a firing range). It is PATHETIC that so many people are being naturalized as “American citizens” (I’d say that they were FRAUDULENTLY naturalized, and therefore should not be able to vote) who have little to no understanding of the concepts of limited government, a free market, and the right to keep and bear arms.
I understand that lots of the native born population who has been here for generations is screwed up in various ways as well, and I have addressed this in other posts. Even with all of the problems with the native born who has been here for generations, the fact of the matter is that there is still at least some tradition of the concepts of limited government and the right to keep and bear arms that remains within this population (as screwed up as a lot of it is). The statistics bear this out as if you examine the statistics, you will find that the native born who have family who has been here for generations are less likely to consume welfare, and to vote in favor of expanding socialist programs, and to infringe on the right to keep and bear arms, than are immigrants and the offspring of immigrants. I understand that there are exceptions to this, but I am talking about the prevailing demographic trends, not the exceptions.
One issue where this should be BLATANTLY apparent is with the right to keep and bear arms. I have been to a lot of gun shows across this nation. I have attended gun shows in Pennsylvania (9 shows), Maryland (2 shows), Virginia (1 show), North Carolina (1 show), Alabama (4 shows), Indiana (7 shows), Iowa (1 show), Arkansas (3 shows), Texas (1 show), Oklahoma (4 shows), Nebraska (1 show), North Dakota (2 shows), New Mexico (2 shows), Arizona (6 shows), and California. (4 shows). That is 48 gun shows in 15 states. I’d say that this is a pretty good sampling of the county on gun shows.
What do you think that the racial/ethnic make up of the crowd at gun shows is? Do you think that you see lots of foreigners at gun shows?
I understand that you can find at least some people in all groups who support gun rights, but once again, I am talking about DEMOGRAPHIC TRENDS, not the exceptions, and you’d best believe that the enemies of liberty in this country are following these DEMOGRAPHIC TRENDS, and that they are in fact the ones who are manipulating them.
I’d like to get a discussion going about gun shows. Tell me how many gun shows you’ve attended and in which state or states you attended these shows, and then tell me about the crowd at these gun shows. Then tell me what you observed about the crowd at the gun shows that you attended.
Tony,
Garrett Epps isn’t hard to look up.
He doesn’t like the results the system produced. He doesn’t even like the system itself (he’d like to see the US adopt a parliamentary system).
But unlike the “dozens who disagree with” him, he actually looks at and acknowledges what the system is instead of stomping his foot and loudly demanding, with resort to the Hamiltonian fantasy, that it be overthrown mid-election and replaced with a system he prefers.
I won’t bother giving links to dozens who disagree with whoever Mr. Epps is.
“the Electoral College does not function as it was intended in 1789”
Garrett Epps disagrees with you:
I don’t need a lesson on the Constitutional Convention. I am well aware of the founders’ intentions.
As I said before, the extra weight the small states get in the senate is balanced by the house, which gives more weight to the larger states.
The electoral college’s intention to give smaller states more weight is not balanced out by anything. It actually only gives weight to a small handful of “swing states” and party hacks who become the “electors”
The office of the presidency is not what it was in 1789 and the Electoral College does not function as it was intended in 1789.
Tony,
The purpose of the Electoral College is to give smaller states more weight.
The purpose of giving each state two Senators regardless of population is to give smaller states more weight.
I’m not arguing about whether or not that’s a good idea, but it is an indisputable fact in both cases.
The reason the people who created both systems gave for them was to even out sectional interests by muting the effect of national popular vote, such that Philadelphia, Boston and New York didn’t get unrestrained power to rule Charlottesville, Wilmington and Burlington.
No, it’s not the same principle. The electoral college decides WHO is president, not how many presidents there are. The 2 person per state senate balances the representative house.
The electoral college doesn’t balance anything. In fact, it creates an imbalance.
Tony,
Every state gets two US Senators.
California gets two US Senators.
Wyoming gets two US Senators.
Florida gets two US Senators.
Vermont gets two US Senators.
Same principle as the electoral college, balancing population with sectional interests.
“I doubt very seriously the Green Party is going to see any sort of bump in donor base out of this hustle. . . . . I don’t blame ’em for trying, though.”
Actually, they aren’t trying. The national Green Party’s steering committee turned down the Stein campaign’s request for support/involvement in order to accept larger donations than the campaign can. A couple of state parties — in Massachusetts and Ohio — threw in, but the national party is simply not involved.
NewFed: ” . . . . .Don’t forget the U.S. Senate. It’s based on the same “arcane” principle! . . . ”
are you referring to how they got elected or the 60 vote rule? If you are referring to the 60 vote rule, I agree that I am not a big fan of it, but that refers to how laws are passed, not how representatives of the people are elected. There is a difference.
Jill said: ” . . . . you make a good point that Infowars is among the better funded alternative media. . . . ”
Calling Inforwars “media” is like calling Pro Wrestling a sport.
Jill also said: ” . . . Breitbart is also a good site. . . . ”
Sure. . . if you like headlines like “Bill Kristol: Renegate Jew” – “Trannies 49X Higher HIV Rate” – “There’s no hiring bias against women, they just suck at interviews” – “Birth Control makes women unattractive and crazy” “Huma Abadin most likely a Saudi spy” (despite that she is not Saudi). . . . yeah . . . that’s a great site.
“Eventually people will look back and wonder how we ever kept a system that allowed someone with 2.5 million more votes than the “winner” to lose an election. Hopefully this will be the impetus to finally scrap the arcane Electoral College.” – Tony From Long Island
Don’t forget the U.S. Senate. It’s based on the same “arcane” principle!
Anthony Dlugos: ” . . . . . .I doubt very seriously the Green Party is going to see any sort of bump in donor base out of this hustle. . . . . I don’t blame ’em for trying, though. . . . .
Agreed. Sure, these people will get e-mails in the future from the green party, but it’s not very difficult to delete it or designate it as spam. After donating to Gov. Johnson, I would get those ridiculously super optimistic e-mails every day. I read very few of them.
Jorge: ” . . . . Next year, almost no one will remember. . . . ”
Are you kidding? This election will be discussed for years if not decades. Eventually people will look back and wonder how we ever kept a system that allowed someone with 2.5 million more votes than the “winner” to lose an election. Hopefully this will be the impetus to finally scrap the arcane Electoral College.
RC,
As it relates to the organization of society, the form of libertarianism you call “NAPsolutism” is simply a standard against which to measure law. That is, a society is “more” or “less” libertarian depending on how closely its laws, both customary and codified, conform to the non-aggression principle.
Are you suggesting that a society’s laws cannot be organized around, or measured by, any principle or standard? I think you’d get lots of disagreement on that, starting with Hammurabi.
Fixing TK’s statement with only deletions:
“Anyone who thinks you can have a libertarian society is a fucking idiot ”
That is, barring some cataclysm, or if Andy gets funding for AndyLand, the L society construct only works in the minds of latter-day Don Quixotes, I strongly suggest. Smaller government, however, is potentially achievable.
Getting a PA appeal is almost impossible, given the legal steps–note I said almost impossible. It’s as almost impossible as Trump winning or something totally absurd, you know, like the Cubs winning the World Series.
The Hamilton elector scheme appears to involve no known Republican electors, who are the only ones who matter for that scheme to succeed.
Jill – Don’t listen to Alex Jones if you don’t like his speech patterns or tough guy persona. Quite frankly, I think his delivery is hilarious. I’ve never bought any of his elixirs and don’t intend to – that’s the only thing I truly dislike about his operation, but hey, it funds a decent size group of professional reporters who, with a couple of exceptions, don’t have any day job other than being employees of Infowars. Instead of listening to Alex, read the articles and watch or listen to the reporting being done by reporters from the field, of which there are several.
The problem I have with the sites that you mentioned is that they are inevitably just commentary sites. There is no actual first person reporting – boots on the ground. The web sites you mention are mostly just a bunch of keyboard cowboys opining about shit that is likely originally sourced, at least partially, from the MSM. I try really hard not to waste my time with a basement dwellers’ writings or, even worse – podcasts.
Trump could always just deliver a message to Hillary through the back channels that she can expect to be prosecuted for anything and everything starting on January 20 if she keeps this up.
Problem solved.
Libertarianism is not a religion nor a gas station…and I’m interested in a laissez faire society not a libertarian one because the latter, the best I can ascertain, would be a moated off agrarian social order w/ no internet, women or pizza delivery…the only entertainment being friday night polka attended by pasty dudes in funny looking shorts.
No…but I hypothesize it wasn’t George Carlin’s first choice as a career…
I love this! For those of you on Facebook, here’s a way to combat FAKE NEWS:
http://www.activistpost.com/2016/11/flag-establishment-media-fake-news-facebook.html?utm_source=Activist+Post+Subscribers&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=d6033a2038-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_term=0_b0c7fb76bd-d6033a2038-387889553
“Anyone who thinks that you can have a libertarian society by filling it with non-libertarians is either a) not really a libertarian, or b) so strategically inept that they might as well not be a libertarian.”
That is a truly disturbing statement, and I had set the bar REAL low, with:
“What’s wrong with Infowars? I have been following Infowars since 2001 and i would say they are one of the best news sources around.”
“Anyone who thinks that you can have a libertarian society by filling it with non-libertarians is either a) not really a libertarian, or b) so strategically inept that they might as well not be a libertarian.”
Not trying to tell other people where to go is not “filling [society] with non-libertarians.” It’s just minding your own business.
Anyone who thinks you can have a libertarian society by setting up an authoritarian police state — which would be necessary, although probably not sufficient to control where everyone goes — 1) is not a libertarian or 2) is a fucking idiot or 3) both.
Glenn Greenwald & The Intercept destroy PropOrNot:
https://theintercept.com/2016/11/26/washington-post-disgracefully-promotes-a-mccarthyite-blacklist-from-a-new-hidden-and-very-shady-group/
The irony, of course, is that PropOrNot is claiming everything they disagree with to be Russian propaganda while they are carrying water for the establishment.
@Matt: I don’t think there’s much point in taking any interest in the “Hamilton Electors” until they recruit at least one Republican elector to their side. Saying that a group of Democratic electors want the Republican electors to not vote for Trump doesn’t qualify as news.
It would be like saying you found a large number of people from “Boston” who root for the New York Yankees … but then you learned that they were from Boston Road in Bronx, New York, not from Boston, Massachusetts.
“dL
November 27, 2016 at 11:44
‘I suppose it’s possible that you’re still a libertarian.’
Anyone who chirps immigration/population mobility is a new world order marxist plot has forfeited the rightful claim to their own cerebral cortex, much less any claim to the body of thought called libertarianism.”
Anyone who thinks that you can have a libertarian society by filling it with non-libertarians is either a) not really a libertarian, or b) so strategically inept that they might as well not be a libertarian.
George Carlin would have had to sell insurance…
Is there something wrong with selling insurance??? 😉
Don, you make a good point that Infowars is among the better funded alternative media. Perhaps I should give the site another chance. I DO like and listen to Paul Joseph Watson. Breitbart is also a good site.
Activist Post and Free Thought Project are very good, as is the Ron Paul Institute. WeAreChange puts out some good info (this is the group I belong to in Los Angeles.) Corbett Report is always excellent. It really is just Jones’ personality and delivery I don’t care for.
Anyone who chirps immigration/population mobility is a new world order marxist plot has forfeited the rightful claim to their own cerebral cortex, much less any claim to the body of thought called libertarianism.
Jill wrote “And I just don’t happen to like Alex Jones. No problem, because there are plenty of news sites to choose from.”
I disagree with the last sentence. There are very few news organizations/sites with multiple full-time paid reporters who have a budget to travel to various events such as Bilderberg, Ferguson, the D and R conventions, the Bundy standoff in Nevada, and many more. Organizations that do first hand news accounts by literate reporters on a regular basis are the exception, not the norm. IMO, Infowars and Breitbart are the only two with significant resources that are not part of the MSM. (e.g. note that Drudge is a one man shop.)
“As for immigration, Alex agrees with libertarians like Lew Rockwell, Hans Herman-Hoppe, Stefan Molyneux, etc…, and myself, in that ”
I suppose it’s possible that you’re still a libertarian. Rockwell. Hoppe and Molyneux long ago gave up any rightful claim to the title. Authoritarianism is not libertarianism. Their position on immigration — and apparently yours — is authoritarian.
As you know, Andy, I live in CA, and I have a different view of immigration. And I just don’t happen to like Alex Jones. No problem, because there are plenty of news sites to choose from.
Should read, “These are the real reasons….”
You may not like Alex Jones’ personality or delivery, but this has nothing to do with the content of the reporting on Infowars, which is generally very good to excellent. If you do not like Alex Jones’ style, keep in mind that he’s got an expanded staff of people who work with him which includes Paul Joseph Watson, David Knight, Joe Biggs, LeeAnn McAdoo, Margaret Howell, Millie Weaver, etc….
Also, Alex Jones is NOT against gays and he has said so repeatedly. He has criticized certain factions of the gay political agenda, such as those who want to force private businesses to provide gays with good or services against the will of the business owner. Alex has said that he’s a libertarian, and that he is for the same rights for everyone, including gays.
As for immigration, Alex agrees with libertarians like Lew Rockwell, Hans Herman-Hoppe, Stefan Molyneux, etc…, and myself, in that you can’t open the floodgates and allow everyone to enter a land mass, regardless of the political ideology of the immigrant (many of whom hold Marxist and/or theocratic views, which makes them hostile to liberty), especially when the immigrants can collect welfare, and become registered voters after they become citizens (and numerous studies show that modern day immigrants use welfare at a higher rate than the native born whose family has been here for generations, and that they also vote in favor of expanding the welfare state and increasing gun control laws at a higher rate than the native born whose family has been here for generations). Alex Jones has said that if he knew that all, or even most, of the immigrants coming in were libertarians, he would support it, but he knows that this is not reality. He correctly points out that there is an agenda behind this which is to import a population that is more compliant to expanding the state and will go along with gun control. This is a part of the New World Order agenda.
Look at your home state of California. The recent gun control initiative that passed there would not have passed if California still had the same demographics that it had in the 1970’s or early 1980’s (note that a gun control initiative made the ballot back then, AND IT GOT VOTED DOWN). The mass influx of foreigners into California has radically changed the demographics of California to the point where it has turned into one of the most socialist gun grabbing states that there is.
The current immigration situation has little to do with freedom, as that is not why most of these immigrants are really coming here. I have been all over this country and talked politics with i do not even know how many people. I have talked politics with MANY immigrants, and I can tell you that the vast majority of them are even more clueless about libertarianism and constitutionalism than the average American, and that is pretty bad. If anyone here believes that the government is bringing all of these people in because they really care about freedom you are being naive. The government KNOWS that these people are:
1) More likely to accept socialism.
2) More likely to accept gun control.
3) More likely to accept global government.
These the real reasons for the current mass migration into this country. It does not have a damn thing to do with expanding individual freedom. This is about destroying what is left of the US Constitution and ushering in the New World Order.
Andy, I noticed a change in Jones a few years ago. Although I agree with your statement “They are generally accurate (certainly more so than the mainstream media),”, I just don’t care for Jones’ personality or delivery. He also rags about “the gay agenda” sometimes and is much too harsh on the immigration issue.
http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com/archives/revealed-the-real-fake-news-list
The meme someone made of my status last week was shared over 11,000 times on Facebook! The meme said something like this: ” Fake News Sites: ABC, CBS, MSNBC, New York Times, Washington Post. and, in a special category, Snopes. ” Apparently, quite a few people agree with me.
It morphed a few times as we added sites.
I looked over the list of sites called “fake news” on Prop or Not, and while I am not familiar with every site they listed, I am familiar with enough of them to know that Prop or Not is full of crap. Infowars, LewRockwell.com, Anti-War.com, Ron Paul Institute, Stormcloudsgathering, The Corbett Report, etc…., are great sites.
Anyone promoting PropOrNot cannot be taken seriously. The site is a joke. “Every news source that didn’t actively promtote Hillary is Russian propaganda”. That’s their message. The Onion is more legitimate.
What’s wrong with Infowars? I have been following Infowars since 2001 and i would say they are one of the best news sources around. Really foolish to attack them when many of their stories are actually reposted from other sites, sometimes even mainstream media sources, but their original stories are usually good as well. They are generally accurate (certainly more so than the mainstream media), and the rare occasions when they get anything wrong I have seen them post retractions.
That Prop or Not site can’t possibly be expected to be taken seriously. I’m not familiar with all the sites listed, nor would I ever consider Before Its News or Infowars to get my news from, but the Drudge Report, Counterpunch, ZeroHedge, the Ron Paul Institute, and the Corbett Report should be considered “fake news”? But yet we’re supposed to believe all the sites that assured us that Hilary was way ahead, and would win the Presidency by a landslide? Surely all the readers here know better than that.
Matt,
I didn’t say Putinism would be the best thing for Europe, the middle east, etc. I said that Putin in control of US foreign policy would be the best thing for the US since VJ Day. There’s a difference.
“It won’t get to the House, but if it did, the House will give it to Trump.”
Probably.
But it’s at least possible they could give it to a different Republican.
It won’t get to the House, but if it did, the House will give it to Trump.
“I really do wish that Trump was a Russian pawn.”
Trump may or may not be a Russian pawn. Whether he is aware of the Russian psyops is an open question. It’s also entirely possible that Russia’s sole interest is in destabilizing the US and creating more infighting within this country, and less trust of the electoral system as well as less trust of elected leadership. In which case their interest will shift with Trump coming to power. What is not in question is that there is in fact a Russian propaganda line on US politics as well as world affairs, which you can read every day at official Russian government outlets. There’s also no question that this same line and its talking points, sources and often even verbatim unattributed quotes crop up with regularity at multiple US and Western outlets. You can learn a lot about the details of how this works at the site linked above.
“Having Vladimir Putin in charge of US foreign policy would probably be the best thing for America since VJ Day.”
Putin would like to establish a new Eurasian Union controlling all of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, with outlets to the Mediterranean. After that he may want to expand further into Europe. He is engaged in an active war with Muslim extremists as well as secessionists, which Russian propaganda paints as a war against all of Islam. Putin’s sycophants paint him as a modern day Crusader who will conquer Islam and take control of Jerusalem for Christendom. He promotes nationalist, authoritarian movements throughout Europe. He has plans to take control of world currency exchanges and petroleum and other strategic resources, pipelines and shipping routes.
At home, Putin runs a kleptocracy which has cracked down on journalists, protesters and opposition politicians, waged a war against LGBT rights, mixed church and state, thoroughly mixed big business and big government, and continues marching down the road to totalitarianism. This is the same model he seeks to export around the world.
Why would libertarians want to pave the way to global Putinism?
I really do wish that Trump was a Russian pawn. Having Vladimir Putin in charge of US foreign policy would probably be the best thing for America since VJ Day.
But so far the evidence I’ve seen for any significant Russian involvement in this election comes to a big pile of nothing except “but we waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaant it to be THEM RUSSIANS’ fault.”
From that article linked at ballot-access.org, though:
“We do so [participate in recount] fully aware that the number of votes separating Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in the closest of these states?—?Michigan?—?well exceeds the largest margin ever overcome in a recount.”
I agree that the LP presidential runs…going back before Johnson’s runs…haven’t been a model of financial rectitude, but if the Greens I’ve met and what I saw at their convention is any indication, giving that party $10 million bucks would be like turning loose an armada of schizophrenics from the local insane asylum inside a pharmacy filled with opiods.
Sadly, you don’t realize that wittingly or not they are repeating Putinist propaganda point by point by point. Compare it with the original and you’ll see. You should look around at the some of the other pages on the site while you are there, such as
http://www.propornot.com/p/the-yyycampaignyyy.html
http://www.propornot.com/p/reference-articles.html
and
http://www.propornot.com/p/frequently-asked-questions.html
Oh, c’mon, George, that site is a pathetic last-ditch effort from the dying mainstream media to discredit its competitors. It won’t work. I’m familiar with most of the sites listed and they’re far more accurate in reporting the news than biased sites like CNN, Fox, the New York Times, and so on.
propornot.com and its media response are not a joke, though I will not be astonished if the onion explains how it hoaxed the Washington Post.
A resource of mine reported that Stein was offered a cabinet position in the Clinton administration if she did this. Lol, and Lord help us if she becomes Secretary of the EPA.
Matt, the “Prop or not” site is the most fun I’ve had in a long time. Thanks for posting it!
“Perhaps I’m misreading this but wouldn’t Gov. Weld’s (and Gov. Johnson’s) clear preference for Sec. Clinton prior to November 8th hurt Mr. Trump?”
I’m not seeing it. If the way they hurt Trump is by appearing as a rightwing ticket, they undercut that by expressing preference for Clinton over Trump. Separately, they also made a pitch to Sanders supporters and were known for emphasizing their liberal-leaning positions. Midway through the campaign the Clinton campaign rolled out a propaganda blitz against them accusing them of taking votes primarily away from her.
If there was a media conspiracy to bolster a right wing ticket, they would have found a way to make the Constitution Party more prominent, and they would have found ways to make past LP nominees such as Browne, Badnarik, Barr, et al more prominent. It seems to fit the facts more that media outlets make candidates whose pre-nomination credentials indicate it more prominent regardless of ideology, e.g. Ralph Nader, Ross Perot, and now Johnson. If the Greens snag a celebrity, billionaire, or prominent current or former elected official as their nominee in 2020, I expect they won’t be ignored by the media. If the LP nominates a pair of little-known activists who have trouble raising enough money to get to state conventions, I expect they will be a lot less featured than Johnson and Weld were.
MSM journalists may personally primarily hold liberal/progressive views, but their programming decisions are much more a function of ratings than their personal ideology. If any of them put ideology over ratings in making their decisions of who to give more coverage to on a frequent basis, they will lose rating share and soon find themselves looking for work elsewhere.
Matt,
““Given some of his statements, it’s easy to believe that Gov. Weld was there to assist Sec. Clinton which also may have been another rationale for the LP ticket receiving more attention than normal.”
–Maybe, but then that contradicts your rationale they were covered as a ticket that would hurt Trump, no?”
Perhaps I’m misreading this but wouldn’t Gov. Weld’s (and Gov. Johnson’s) clear preference for Sec. Clinton prior to November 8th hurt Mr. Trump? I believe that many in the MSM believe that the LP is “of the right” but that Gov. Weld certainly appeared to have had a hidden agenda as well. I don’t believe the two notions to be mutually exclusive.
This is starting to get more interesting…
http://ballot-access.org/2016/11/26/clinton-campaign-will-participate-in-recounts-that-were-initiated-by-jill-stein/
And from comments on another article at BAN:
Walter Ziobro on November 26, 2016 at 6:26 am said:
“I am beginning to suspect that the true purpose of the recount challenges is NOT to overturn the results from Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, BUT to drag the process out as long as possible with challenges and counter challenges, so that NO electors are certified from those states in time for their votes to be cast.”
Add in a few Hamilton electors and it’s game on in the House. Which would still not go to Clinton, but may go to a compromise Republican. Or fail to reach a conclusion, giving it to Pence.
The LP doesn’t have much standing to criticize the Green Party on how money is raised and spent. I remember the last LNC budget process …
I think the money for the recount will be well spent. I’ve made a small donation and would advise others to contribute what they can.
Some readers may find this useful, regarding some points mentioned earlier in the discussion:
http://www.propornot.com/p/the-list.html
“Of course, whatever moneys the Greens manage to accumulate from this swindle will be wasted.” — Anthony Dlugos
That’s rich, particularly coming from someone who supported a candidate who personally facilitated Ron Nielson’s outlandishly hefty hauls during the 2012 and 2016 campaigns.
“Jill Stein’s Post-Election Fundraising May Not Go for Recounts”
A big chunk of it will go to fundraisers, along with a juicy new list. She does also say that if they raise more money than what they need for recounts and associated costs, some may go towards other election integrity efforts, but so far that’s not an issue; they are estimating the costs to be 6-7 million. The appeal also says that if they don’t raise enough, the money would go towards election integrity advocacy, but at this point they have raised enough that they will almost certainly be able to get recounts in all 3 states that they have targeted.
“There is no question that Dr. Stein and the GP in general are receiving attention for this maneuver. I just don’t think it will appeal to the Sanders voters nor have a long lasting impact.”
It will appeal to a lot of Sanders voters who either see Trump as an unacceptable president, have concerns about election integrity, or in many cases both.
” If by some remote chance the election results are overturned,”
Then it would be a magnitude or two outside the range of recounts overturning elections anywhere ever. In other words, it won’t happen.
” And I don’t see how the GP gains, though the GP members likely see Sec. Clinton as being more of an ally with respect to environmental policy.”
See my comments earlier in the thread. And there are a wide range of policies with which Greens would disagree with Trump more on.
“As to Gov. Johnson receiving so much attention, I think that the MSM calculus has been that the LP is a “party of the right” and therefore draws more votes from the Reps than the Dems, so they gave him some attention for that.”
I don’t think that could have been the main reason. Why did Ralph Nader get more attention than Harry Browne in 2000? And if you want a party that’s reliably on the right, you’d think they would manage to give a bit more attention to the Constitution Party. With Johnson, there was talk from the start that he could conceivably draw more from Sanders voters, potheads, and others who may be otherwise more likely to vote Democratic (or stay home).
“Combined with the fact that it was hard to argue against the governing experience of the LP ticket. ”
That probably had a lot more to do with it. If, say, Elizabeth Warren, or two former Democratic governors, ran as a third party, do you think the media would have ignored it?
“Given some of his statements, it’s easy to believe that Gov. Weld was there to assist Sec. Clinton which also may have been another rationale for the LP ticket receiving more attention than normal.”
Maybe, but then that contradicts your rationale they were covered as a ticket that would hurt Trump, no?
“Then again, I initially thought the President Elect was a Clinton shill, so what do I know?”
My best guess right now is that they are both shills for many of the same behind the scenes players; see above.
“I can fully understand why so many Libertarians are critical of Jill Stein’s post-election activities. Regardless of the outcome of the recount in Wisconsin and possibly in Pennsylvania and Michigan, this is terrific publicity for Dr. Stein and the Green Party.”
I agree. As someone who usually votes Libertarian but did vote for Dr. Stein this time, I think she is playing this brilliantly.
“In retrospect, this will probably be the biggest story involving a third-party candidate for the presidency in 2016.”
Correct again.
“I didn’t vote for Jill, but it’s nice to see the Green Party candidate getting some serious attention — and it will almost certainly be considerably more in the coming days — when she was essentially excluded from any meaningful coverage by the mainstream media which shamefully limited its reporting of third-party candidates for the White House to the Libertarian Party’s Gary Johnson, the metaphorical class clown of the 2016 presidential election (you know, the one always seeking attention, but never bothering to crack a book or pay attention during class).”
Indeed, Johnson was a huge disappointment and Jill Stein did not get as much attention as she deserved – until now.
well, now, Andy…it starts to make a little more sense.
Neat little clause she tucked away in the fine print.
Of course, whatever moneys the Greens manage to accumulate from this swindle will be wasted.
Jill Stein’s Post-Election Fundraising May Not Go for Recounts
https://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Article/207802-2016-11-26-jill-steins-post-election-fundraising-may-not-go-for-recounts.htm
“As to Gov. Johnson receiving so much attention, I think that the MSM calculus has been that the LP is a ‘party of the right’ and therefore draws more votes from the Reps than the Dems, so they gave him some attention for that.” — Stuart Simms
I respect your opinion, Stuart, but it’s important to remember that the mainstream media substantially increased its coverage of Johnson’s candidacy after he called Hillary “a wonderful public servant” in June. It’s also important to keep in mind that his running mate, William Weld, continued to praise the former Secretary of State with all sorts of accolades as the campaign progressed.
It’s also important to remember that Jill Stein immediately denounced Johnson for describing Clinton in that manner, even though her criticism — as valid as it was — was largely muted by the mainstream media.
*took = tool
Darcy,
There is no question that Dr. Stein and the GP in general are receiving attention for this maneuver. I just don’t think it will appeal to the Sanders voters nor have a long lasting impact. If by some remote chance the election results are overturned, I think that Dr. Stein in particular will look like a hypocrite and a took if she doesn’t already. And I don’t see how the GP gains, though the GP members likely see Sec. Clinton as being more of an ally with respect to environmental policy.
As to Gov. Johnson receiving so much attention, I think that the MSM calculus has been that the LP is a “party of the right” and therefore draws more votes from the Reps than the Dems, so they gave him some attention for that. Combined with the fact that it was hard to argue against the governing experience of the LP ticket. Given some of his statements, it’s easy to believe that Gov. Weld was there to assist Sec. Clinton which also may have been another rationale for the LP ticket receiving more attention than normal.
Then again, I initially thought the President Elect was a Clinton shill, so what do I know?
I can fully understand why so many Libertarians are critical of Jill Stein’s post-election activities. Regardless of the outcome of the recount in Wisconsin and possibly in Pennsylvania and Michigan, this is terrific publicity for Dr. Stein and the Green Party.
In retrospect, this will probably be the biggest story involving a third-party candidate for the presidency in 2016.
I didn’t vote for Jill, but it’s nice to see the Green Party candidate getting some serious attention — and it will almost certainly be considerably more in the coming days — when she was essentially excluded from any meaningful coverage by the mainstream media which shamefully limited its reporting of third-party candidates for the White House to the Libertarian Party’s Gary Johnson, the metaphorical class clown of the 2016 presidential election (you know, the one always seeking attention, but never bothering to crack a book or pay attention during class).
I had a bit of a brain burp when I looked at OH instead of WI. Dr. Stein is over 1% in WI which is what the GP needs for retention.
How does Dr. Stein’s challenges to the results in WI, MI and PA help the GP appeal to Sanders voters in the future? Many if not most of these voters, and many others, concluded that Sec. Clinton and the DNC stole the Democratic nomination from Sen. Sanders. Wouldn’t these voters be a natural target for the GP to convert? I would think that many of these people would actually feel a sense of betrayal if they interpret these challenges as helping Sec. Clinton. I guess I’ll just have to be perplexed by what seems to me to be counter-intuitive for the GP.
Fuck that shit. We the people have spoken and we want TRUMP. Stein needs to be locked up and gang raped and tortured by guards in Gitmo along with Hillary Clinton for doing this shit. We want and need TRUMP. Can we get Obama out already so we can get on with it already and Make America Great Again? Personally I can’t wait! Oh and I volunteer to push Stein out of a helicopter myself.
I’m with Anthony on this one – no chance the election gets turned over because of this. I don’t think the Hamilton Electors have much chance either but it’s a better chance than a recount. Recounts are very unlikely to swing more than 0.1%, if that.
I’ve seen speculation that questioning the legitimacy of the election is in fact a Putinist project – he was for Trump in the election to help shake up and deligitimize the US electoral system, but now that Trump has won Putin’s interests have switched to deligitimizing Trump. And, indeed, Stein announced her recount effort on none other than RT.
I’m not convinced, but it’s at least worth mentioning as one possible explanation. Stein has been a long time contributor to RT and has meet with Putin.
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/09/russian-greens-slam-stein-for-cozying-up-to-putin-your-silence-on-his-crimes-silences-our-struggle/
http://www.jill2016.com/stein_in_russia_calls_for_principled_collaboration
Anthony,
You write:
“why would the Clinton Foundation even bother with this pointless endeavor? The election is not getting overturned. What’s the point?”
Assuming that the election is not getting overturned (I don’t think it will be either, but I’m not quite as sure as you), the point is to cultivate Lost Cause mythology that can be used to increase donations and get out the vote next time around.
Stuart,
I wouldn’t necessarily assume an evil or corrupt motive on the part of the Stein campaign or Dr. Stein herself. This is probably just a way for them to keep their brands up in lights for a bit longer, cultivate some new donors, and maybe even by cred from some who were or are located on the line separating “guess I have to vote Clinton so Trump doesn’t get it” from “fuck Clinton, I just can’t do it” this time around so that they’re on the Green side of that line in 2020.
But I still think the the hooks this stuff is being hung on are problematic and that the Stein campaign’s actions serve a false narrative.
The “anomalies” being complained about are explained by the fact that Trump appealed successfully to an industrial working class demographic that the Democrats took for granted instead of busting their hump to keep. No Russian involvement required. It’s not rocket science. I predicted it. Darcy Richardson predicted it. Michael Moore predicted it. The Trump campaign predicted it.
The Democrats weren’t willing to adjust their beautiful model of how things were going to come out to accord with the facts, and the facts ran that model over like a Mack truck hitting a possum. Now they want to complain about “anomalies” and Russians and other weird shit. Anything except take responsibility for their massive election-losing fuckup.
She’s getting more money and possibly more media than during the whole campaign. That’s something to build off in the future.
Maximum contribution $2700 or $10k thru states, so it’s individual donors.
“I think it’s entirely possible that some foundation money may have made it’s way to Dr. Stein’s favorite cause(s).”
I share your perplexity, Stuart, but why would the Clinton Foundation even bother with this pointless endeavor? The election is not getting overturned. What’s the point?
Was this just a stroke of genius by someone within Stein’s inner circle, realizing they could make a quick buck?
What are the odds that someone leaks the donor list or the info is hacked? I’d be very curious to see if George Soros is using Jill Stein and the Green Party to move this effort forward.
TK – This particular way of doing things is the Green Party helping Clinton plumb the possibility that she’s actually the winner, but without the political risk that she’ll end up looking like a sore loser.
I agree with this but I can’t figure out the angle for Dr. Stein or the GP. I looked up Dr. Stein’s results for ballot retention purposes and in MI she was over 1% and Ballot Access News has retention at “approximately one half of one percent”; in OH she was under 1% well short of retention at 3% (BAN); only in PA is it remotely close with a .81% vote total and “approximately 1%” needed (BAN). So ballot retention doesn’t appear to be the primary motivator and frankly I’m not believing the vote integrity claim either. In fact to me the vote integrity claim appears to be a smoke screen.
Perhaps the motive is anti-Trump but Dr. Stein was, at least publicly, just as anti-Clinton. I have no proof, but given Sec. Clinton’s history of situational ethics, I think it’s entirely possible that some foundation money may have made it’s way to Dr. Stein’s favorite cause(s).
“In 2004, David Cobb did not petition to be on the Ohio ballot, in order to make it easier for John Kerry to win the state.” — Gene Berkman
Actually, David Cobb and the Greens did circulate nominating petitions for a place on the Ohio ballot in 2004, but fell short of the 5,000 valid signatures needed.
“Michael Badnarik asked for the recount…”
Which was quite a point of contention at the time in the LP. The national party made clear to disassociate itself from the effort.
https://web.archive.org/web/20041216012959/http://www.lp.org/lpnews/0501/recount-controversy.html
Just a historical note. In 2004, David Cobb did not petition to be on the Ohio ballot, in order to make it easier for John Kerry to win the state. This was part of the “safe states” strategy of The Green Party.
After the election, individuals associated with John Kerry’s campaign approached the Green Party about asking for a recount in Ohio; the Kerry supporters promised to pay for a recount, but did not want to ask for it. Since David Cobb had not been on the Ohio ballot, he lacked standing to demand a recount, so he asked Michael Badnarik to ask for the recount. Michael Badnarik asked for the recount, which went forward with money from the Kerry campaign. Unfortunately it did not change the results, and George W Bush was re-elected.
That is the precedent for this new initiative from Jill Stein. It is clear that members of The Green Party do in general consider the Democrats to be the lesser of evils, and they act accordingly. Sometimes they profit from it; this time looks like a real money maker for Jill Stein.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/23/politics/faithless-electors-donald-trump/
Washington (CNN)Democratic electors are launching one last bid to block Donald Trump from taking the White House — reaching out to their Republican counterparts with the plea they break rank and support another Republican candidate.
…
They call their effort Hamilton Elector after Federalist Paper #68, in which Alexander Hamilton wrote that the Electoral College would stand as one more check on power — part of the movement, at that time, to win ratification of the Constitution.
Hamilton’s argument was that the College would prevent against selecting a president with poor judgment or under the influence of a foreign government, said Ryan Clayton, a volunteer with the project and veteran liberal activist.
“If you read Federalist 68, it literally reads like a list of attributes for Donald Trump,” Clayton said.
For a hail mary pass that is more likely to change the outcome, although still very unlikely:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/22/politics/hillary-clinton-challenge-results/
“…Additionally, at least three electors have pledged to not vote for Trump and to seek a “reasonable Republican alternative for president through Electoral College,” according to a statement Wednesday from a group called the Hamilton Electors, which represents them.”
Andy Craig,
You may well be right. But either way, I think it’s safe to say that Stein is not doing Clinton’s bidding here, but rather has reasons of her own.
If the Clinton campaign thought there was any hope in a recount, they would have done it themselves. Maybe if it had come down to just Michigan, we’d be seeing that play out… though even there the margin isn’t that narrow. We saw it on election night when they initially waited to concede; embarrassment over their “Trump not accepting the results” talking point notwithstanding. That would have gone out the window, and they could have (accurately) pointed to the fact that they had not been talking about regular recounts with normal recount margins.
Recounts don’t make 100,000 votes in WI & PA appear out of nowhere. If it was somehow that rigged initially, then there’s nothing a standard recount would do to reveal it. If ballot boxes are being stuffed or ballots thrown in the trash; or the electronic voting machines somehow hacked; a recount reveals none of that. An audit of the voting equipment and procedures might; but Jill Stein can’t get you that.
In 2000 on election night returns, Bush lead Gore in Florida by 1,784 votes. The final official result was Bush up by 527 votes. Estimates and studies later of a hypothetical statewide recount, showed that they *might* have resulted, at the most, in Gore winning by less than 200 votes. In that whole thing, the was a possible swing of less than 2,000 votes at stake. Those are the kinds of numbers that make sense for a recount.
Wisconsin wasn’t that close. Pennsylvania wasn’t that close. Both were won by over a full percentage point. Michigan is *maybe* on the outside edge of being that close; but it’s still a margin twenty times bigger than Bush’s win in Florida, and in a smaller state.
“If the point is to have some kind of elections-integrity sample and review of voting equipment; why not Colorado or New Hampshire? Why not any small states that would be cheaper? Why include one state that entirely uses the exact voting method they advocate for as preferable? The answer is obvious: because nobody would give this much money to that sort of effort. They’re giving in the (wildly misplaced) hopes of helping Hillary Clinton win the election somehow. That’s the message their selection of states sends; whether they formally deny it or not.”
Stein wants to maximize her donations. She maximizes them by appealing to pro-Clinton (or at least anti-Trump) sore losers. She then decides how “excess” money is used, and her fundraisers claim their percentage and build their lists. She gets more TV time. Does she care if Trump or Clinton is sworn in? Most likely no. Have any realistic hopes of changing that result? Probably not.
Paul Craig Roberts, via Jill Pyeatt:
“It is strange that the Green Party candidate would prefer Hillary, who would raise tensions with Russia, to Trump, who says he will restore normal relations. One thermo-nuclear war and the climate is history along with the rest of us.”
I don’t think she prefers Hillary, but rather is exploiting the hail mary pass by Clinton supporters to bring attention to the longstanding Green Party concerns about black box voting.
Also, it’s untrue that Trump represents a lower risk of nuclear war. Clinton’s danger of war with Russia was exaggerated by Putinists; in reality Putin usually backs down. Trump’s truthfulness and loyalty are non-existent, so I would not put much stock in his current relatively pro-Russia position. He was friends with the Clintons not that long ago, than was just recently calling to have them jailed. Now maybe not so much, but who knows about a few months from now or next year? Likewise he could have a rather nasty breakup with his current BFF Putin, and bombs away it will be. To take just one possible scenario, Trump scraps the Iran deal, Iran resumes atomic program, Trump bombs Iran; does Russia intervene? And finally, assuming Trump and Putin remain friends, a nuclear war with China would be just as bad for the environment as one with Russia.
Trump’s relationship with Putin doesn’t seem to be any closer than various other candidates’ relationships with, say, Netanyahu.
And so far the publicly presented evidence that Putin’s regime was behind the DNC email leak or any other election-related cyber events is a big fat goose-egg. Even the US intelligence agencies, which could have just made a bunch of shit up with some expectation of not getting caught for awhile if they didn’t have the goods, weren’t comfortable going any further than claiming “confidence” of Russian government involvement because the “methods are consistent with” it.
There just doesn’t seem to be any “there” there, either on Russian manipulation of the elections or Trump as Russian puppet. Trump may not be the smartest man on Earth, but at least he understands that antagonizing Russia is a BAD IDEA. Some of our even dumber politicians — like Hillary Clinton and John McCain — have been happy to bait the bear, risking nuclear confrontation for cheap political sugar highs.
“She doesn’t want the job…not by the means she would have to resort to get it. Clinton surprisingly conceded on election night(well, early that morning). She didn’t even wait till the next day. She could have stretched this thing out, daily emboldened by her ever widening popular vote margin. She could have challenged the count every single close midwestern state. Launched guerilla campaigns against GOP voter suppression tactics in key states. She could have raised a real stink. In that instance, you almost assuredly would have seen Weld flappin his lips in Michigan.”
Exactly.
“I do confess I’m a little surprised that Weld hasn’t been out there continuing his role as a Clinton surrogate.”
He’s doing exactly what the Clintons are doing about the recount, which is nothing.
Recounts would certainly be in order in a number of states — not because of “statistical anomalies” that consist of “the candidate we wanted to win didn’t win,” but because when there’s a very close outcome it’s reasonable to say “OK, double-check everything and make sure we got it right.”
But there’s no reason the actually affected campaigns shouldn’t ask for those recounts.
This particular way of doing things is the Green Party helping Clinton plumb the possibility that she’s actually the winner, but without the political risk that she’ll end up looking like a sore loser.
“The suspicious part for me is that the goal was 2 million, then 4 million, now 7 million. For the same three states.”
The initial goal was only for Wisconsin since that deadline was today to file a recount challenge. Also, the 2 M covers the state fees for all three states but they estimated all along 6-7 million for attorneys fees and various other related costs. The changed metric on the fundraising thermometer was probably what their fundraising consultants told them works best from the psychological viewpoint to raise the maximum amount of funds. If you show a goal that is to distant off the bat, donors are likely to see it as a lost cause and too difficult to be attainable and decide to hang on to their money.
“There are lots of ways this can help future fundarising efforts by Stein and the Greens.”
There are lots of ways it CAN help, theoretically speaking.
I’ll bet none of them come to fruition.
Socratic Gadfly via link:
“Why would Putin have reasons to favor Trump over Clinton, per Halderman’s insinuation?
Google “Frank Giustra” plus “uranium” plus “Clinton Foundation” to see that Hillary Clinton was more than cozy enough herself with Vlad the Impaler. So, despite agreeing with him on point 2, to some degree, I’m back to suspecting him of being a Clintonista.”
It’s no secret that Putinist media were awash in pro-Trump, anti-Clinton propaganda. After the election, the Russian regime admitted that it was in constant contact with multiple members of the Trump campaign throughout the election. It’s no secret that Trump and his team are friendlier to Putin and the Russian regime than the Clinton team. Putin’s propaganda sources frequently accused Clinton of wanting war with Russia. It’s likely that Trump was seduced with flattery, and perhaps with bribery and/or blackmail, into being a Putin puppet.
“Matt
November 25, 2016 at 16:03
It’s been fairly widely noted that Obama, despite all campaign promises and rhetoric, acted a lot like a third term of George W. Bush. He is already saying nice things about president elect Trumpf, contradicting everything he said during the campaign, much like newfound Trump sycophants in the GOP such as Nikki Haley, Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney. I think there’s a good case to be made that Democratic leaders are really just Republican shills. They are financed by the same Wall Street and military-industrial financial interests that were traditional backers of the Republicans. The only difference with the Democrats is that they use union members and various minority group organizations as campaign labor, and push out a bunch of phony rhetoric to appeal to these groups. But in office, they dance to the tune of the people who really butter most of their bread – the big banks and “defense” companies.”
The are both NWO.
“Anyone who fantasized that Trump is not controlled by these same financial interests is also not seeing the whole picture.”
This may end up being yet another case of “Meet the new boss. It’s the same as the old boss.” to borrow a phrase from The Who.
I’ve seen a lot of speculation retweeted by Politics1 that this is all a bit of a scam on Stein’s part.
https://twitter.com/JimmyPrinceton/status/802120151307026432
https://twitter.com/EsotericCD/status/802140231138967552
The suspicious part for me is that the goal was 2 million, then 4 million, now 7 million. For the same three states. So either Stein drastically underestimated the money the 3 recounts would need to be successful, or she’s raking in all she can for other reasons. Maybe those reasons are Green related or to build an email list.
I don’t blame her for doing so, it’s a great opportunity. But I don’t think she’s being entirely honest as to the plans for the money either.
“If these donations are from Hillary supporters who are hoping to overturn the election result, I would not be surprised if Jill Stein and the Green Party never see a penny from them again.”
You are looking at it too simplistically. Some people may have supported Clinton because they live in a swing state or because they don’t understand the swing state dynamic, but may support Stein as an ideal choice, so this now puts them on her fundraisers radar. Some may have voted for Stein but never donated to her before. Same result. Some may have voted for Stein, thinking that there was no chance Trump could actually win; this move lets them “atone” for their “mistake,” and keep Stein and the Greens in their good graces. Believe it or not, there are also people who would have voted for Stein or at least considered it, but never heard of her. The coverage she receives as a result of this may ensure that they hear of the Greens and their nominee next time. There are lots of ways this can help future fundarising efforts by Stein and the Greens. Perhaps she will create a new organization to fight against black box voting and this list will help her fundraise for that in the future. And so on.
I doubt very seriously the Green Party is going to see any sort of bump in donor base out of this hustle.
I don’t blame ’em for trying, though.
“Stein has raised huge amounts of money, meaning Stein has piled up tons of new donors for her party. Also, there were doubtless major fundraising costs.”
True as well.
“It is keeping Stein and the Green Party in the news and therefore relevant.”
Also true.
“Technically that wasn’t his call. The rules under the Electoral Count Act of 1887, require at least one Representative and one Senator to challenge a state’s electoral votes. There were a couple of dozen Representatives, but no Senators joined them. No doubt, that was because Gore had made clear to them he didn’t want to do it, but his hands were tied in ruling on the actual objections on the floor. They didn’t have a Senator cosponsoring, so it was out of order.”
The Democrats have lots of Senators, so if they wanted to challenge the Florida results, they could have. I seem to recall reading that Gore himself, as President of the Senate, could have been the “Senator” to join them, but even if not, if he had just asked for his party to back him they would have no doubt found plenty willing to do so.
It’s been fairly widely noted that Obama, despite all campaign promises and rhetoric, acted a lot like a third term of George W. Bush. He is already saying nice things about president elect Trumpf, contradicting everything he said during the campaign, much like newfound Trump sycophants in the GOP such as Nikki Haley, Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney. I think there’s a good case to be made that Democratic leaders are really just Republican shills. They are financed by the same Wall Street and military-industrial financial interests that were traditional backers of the Republicans. The only difference with the Democrats is that they use union members and various minority group organizations as campaign labor, and push out a bunch of phony rhetoric to appeal to these groups. But in office, they dance to the tune of the people who really butter most of their bread – the big banks and “defense” companies.
Anyone who fantasized that Trump is not controlled by these same financial interests is also not seeing the whole picture. Trump is not as rich as he makes himself out to be, and despite his claims that he would self-finance, a lot more money was spent on his behalf by major Republican donors than he contributed himself. Even more value by far was contributed by the media apparatus which covered him constantly throughout the primaries and general election, and by shadow government elements in the FBI. Trump is a life long friend and donor of many people in the establishment. Maybe his red meat rhetoric thrown out to Republican base voters was as disingenuous as the phony appeals that the Democrats serve their own base.
“Al Gore when he presided over congressional certification of the votes and refused to allow Congressional Black Caucus challenges to the Florida vote move forward”
Technically that wasn’t his call. The rules under the Electoral Count Act of 1887, require at least one Representative and one Senator to challenge a state’s electoral votes. There were a couple of dozen Representatives, but no Senators joined them. No doubt, that was because Gore had made clear to them he didn’t want to do it, but his hands were tied in ruling on the actual objections on the floor. They didn’t have a Senator cosponsoring, so it was out of order.
The problem with their explanation is that there isn’t anything “statistically anomalous” about those three states. One of them… Michigan… uses 100% paper-ballot optical-scans.
The *only* thing those three states have in common is they are the ones that put Donald Trump over the top; the ones that would be required to flip for the result to change.
If the point is to have some kind of elections-integrity sample and review of voting equipment; why not Colorado or New Hampshire? Why not any small states that would be cheaper? Why include one state that entirely uses the exact voting method they advocate for as preferable? The answer is obvious: because nobody would give this much money to that sort of effort. They’re giving in the (wildly misplaced) hopes of helping Hillary Clinton win the election somehow. That’s the message their selection of states sends; whether they formally deny it or not.
“… leading to the suggestion that the statistics articles are a plant by the Clinton campaign…”
I don’t think so. The Clinton camp rejected the statisticians’ call for a recount. Democrats have a history of conceding going back to Al Gore when he presided over congressional certification of the votes and refused to allow Congressional Black Caucus challenges to the Florida vote move forward, to 2004 when they refused to contest the vote in Ohio (leaving that to the Green Party), to this year, when Clinton conceded within less than 24 hours.
Somehow, had the shoe been on the other foot, I doubt Trump would have been so conciliatory. Something tells me that had he lost under any circumstances he would have been raising a stink about rigged elections along with all his supporters. Meanwhile, it seems that the Clintons and the mainstream media that is widely believed to be in their corner seem to be ignoring the very real possibility that Trump-Giuliani loyalist elements in the NY office of the FBI, Putin, Comey and black box voting somehow combined to steal the election.
Whose side was the mainstream media really on? I’ve seen it reported, although not very much, that they gave twice as much “free advertising” to Trump as to Clinton. Perhaps their real loyalty is to ratings, and they figured out that Trump was better for ratings. What about Wall Street? For all the reports that Clinton was the unanimous candidate of the Wall Street, financial and media establishment, Wall Street has been having a huge rally ever since the election, anticipating greater profits under President Trump. Military spending is especially expected to go up under a Trump administration. So if financiers, Wall Street, the military-industrial complex and the mainstream media were indeed secretly for Trump, and only feigned support for Clinton, could it have been that Clinton herself was a patsy candidate for Trump? Early on in the campaign we saw a lot of speculation that Trump, a long time donor and friend of the Clintons, was actually fake opposition meant to insure the victory of Clinton. Could it have been the other way around?
“Jill Pyeatt
November 25, 2016 at 15:07
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/11/25/what-is-jill-stein-up-to/
I’m SOOO glad I decided not to vote for her. This move will really harm her in the future.”
Jill, are you willing to divulge to us who you voted for?
I ended up voting for Constitution Party candidate for President, Darrell Castle (Castle was on the ballot where I voted), although I know that he was not on the ballot where you voted (California), he actually was registered in California as an official write in candidate (write in candidates for President in California (Top Two Primary bans write in votes for offices other than President) have to be registered as official write in candidates in order to have their votes counted). I voted for the Libertarian Party candidates who were on my ballot for other offices, but there were only three of them. I wrote in None Of The Above for everything else.
From the donation page:
“In 2004, the Cobb/LaMarche campaign demanded a recount in Ohio. Because of their efforts, an election administrator went to jail. We also exposed the profound problems with DRE machines, which helped launch an election integrity movement. That provoked California to engage in a “top to bottom” review of their voting system, which culminated in the abolition of DRE machines.
The Green Party Platform calls for “publicly-owned, open source voting equipment and deploy it across the nation to ensure high national standards, performance, transparency and accountability; use verifiable paper ballots; and institute mandatory automatic random precinct recounts to ensure a high level of accuracy in election results.”
Election integrity experts have independently identified Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as states where “statistical anomalies” raised concerns. Our effort to recount votes in those states is not intended to help Hillary Clinton.
These recounts are part of an election integrity movement to attempt to shine a light on just how untrustworthy the U.S. election system is.
All money raised goes toward recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. We hope to do recounts in all three states. If we only raise sufficient money for two, we will demand recounts in two states. If we only raise enough money for one, we will demand a recount in one state.
We cannot guarantee a recount will happen in any of these states we are targeting. We can only pledge we will demand recounts in those states.
If we raise more than what’s needed, the surplus will also go toward election integrity efforts and to promote voting system reform.”
Jill,
Stein could just continue to use the plausible deniability of just wanting a “fair election” and claim its not about Hillary winning.
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/11/25/what-is-jill-stein-up-to/
I’m SOOO glad I decided not to vote for her. This move will really harm her in the future.
well, in any case, its not like the Green Party has much to lose anyway.
might as well give it a shot.
She doesn’t want the job…not by the means she would have to resort to get it. Clinton surprisingly conceded on election night(well, early that morning). She didn’t even wait till the next day. She could have stretched this thing out, daily emboldened by her ever widening popular vote margin. She could have challenged the count every single close midwestern state. Launched guerilla campaigns against GOP voter suppression tactics in key states. She could have raised a real stink. In that instance, you almost assuredly would have seen Weld flappin his lips in Michigan.
Didn’t Stein express great fear of a Clinton presidency than a Trump presidency?
”
“George Phillies
November 24, 2016 at 23:57
Why did Obama ask people to give him $3”
Probably because he wants to see fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton take the office.
”
Completely wrong. Te point of the $3 is that once someone has put money in they probably — unless they understand the sunken costs fallacy — view themselves as having a commitment on which they need need to follow through with more money and their votes.
Steve,
I do confess I’m a little surprised that Weld hasn’t been out there continuing his role as a Clinton surrogate.
I expected Johnson to pretty much disappear, as he has. Once con artists have milked every dime they think they safely can out of an opportunity, they strike their tents and go looking for the next mark.
The Green Party post election has raised 4 million dollars to finance sticking a red hot poker into the two party system….. twice what the Libertarians raised in 2012 during the election.
Well, Shesh…. TK…. what a twist in rolls…
Jill Stein is keeping the Green Party in the News. Where is Gary Johnson? Bill Weld? the Libertarian Party?
The green party is post election challenging the status quo. Sticking a poker in the eye of the beast.
Good for them Good for Jill.
Thomas Knapp> It’s a shame to see Dr. Stein go down as a shill for Hillary Clinton.
Is it too early to join the #NeverStein2020 campaign? I volunteer to wear #NeverStein2020 t-shirts.
“Clowns to left of me, jokers to the right, here am I stuck in the middle with you.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8StG4fFWHqg
It’s all for election irregularities that don’t exist, with the kerfuffle started by a Clintonista university professor who committed multiple logical fallacies and insinuated that his own state doesn’t have a paper trail for all ballots, even though it actually does:
http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2016/11/election-wasnt-rigged-and-i-wont-pay.html
“George Phillies
November 24, 2016 at 23:57
Why did Obama ask people to give him $3”
Probably because he wants to see fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton take the office.
Why did Obama ask people to give him $3?
“Last time we did X to the Republican Party. This time, we are prepared to do Y. Won’t you help us?
It helps to understand politics, but I am confident you know see how this game can be played.
“George Phillies
November 24, 2016 at 19:24
Stein has raised huge amounts of money, meaning Stein has piled up tons of new donors for her party. Also, there were doubtless major fundraising costs.”
If these donations are from Hillary supporters who are hoping to overturn the election result, I would not be surprised if Jill Stein and the Green Party never see a penny from them again.
No, it’s an opportunity. At a guess, the fundraising was mostly electronic.
It’s not like she or the Green Party can use this money for just anything they want, right? And it would be foolish to suggest these particular donors will be loyal to the Green cause. Nor is the Stein crew doing this for someone you could call a Green-leaning Democrat.
Why not figure out a way to go after the Sanders folks who probably now feel righteously screwed out of their chance at the presidency.
Seems like a waste.
It’s a shame to see Dr. Stein go down as a shill for Hillary Clinton. If the Clinton campaign wants recounts, let the Clinton campaign ask for them and pay the costs of asking for them.
Next year,almost no one will remember.
Stein has raised huge amounts of money, meaning Stein has piled up tons of new donors for her party. Also, there were doubtless major fundraising costs.
“I know some of the staffers in the Wisconsin elections agency.
I don’t think they’ll be grateful for the extra work.” — Andy Craig
Well, that is their job. If they don’t like it, perhaps they can look for something more suitable in the private sector.
It is keeping Stein and the Green Party in the news and therefore relevant.
And now democrats are becoming more friendly as democrats are probably providing this new funding.
Regardless of the merits of a recount, this is probably a win for the GP. Provided they want to be known as the democrats little bitch.
What is Stein’s angle here? Why is she dobig this?
It can’t be that she wants to see Hillary win.
I know some of the staffers in the Wisconsin elections agency.
I don’t think they’ll be grateful for the extra work.
Also, one of the good statistics people did an analysis, and concluded that once you adjusted for income, race, and population density, the effect went away.
Furthermore, New Hampshire was very close, and we do not seem to see a request here for a recount.
In addition, the statistics claims are reportedly mostly unsourced (readers may search nakedCapitalism.com for links) leading to the suggestion that the statistics articles are a plant by the Clinton campaign. When there are names, readers might useful research who the sources were connected to, pre-election.
Hay, these are states not doing well financially, and shipping out of state money into them may create some jobs.