Our monthly open thread. Post news tips about alt parties and independent candidates, discuss any story that should be posted here but has not yet been posted, or even delve into completely off-topic stuff…just avoid quarantined thread subject matter and things that could get us and/or you into legal trouble such as threats, libel, and copyright infringement.
News tips can also be sent to the IPR writers who have chosen to make their contact info available at https://independentpoliticalreport.com/about/.
I saw a comment on FB a few days ago that Gene Chapman said he was going to run for president, but I didn’t know if he was serious. Perhaps he is. Does anyone know if this is a campaign we should cover here, or is it just someone having some fun this week?
“Who is Gene Chapman, 2016 U. S. Presidential candidate?
I was born in Denton, Texas, and I have degrees in Welding and Motion Picture Production. I’m nine classes shy of a bachelor’s in Social Economy (that part of the economy outside government). I gained a couple of hundred hours of college level studies from nine college campuses. I am responsible for about $2.979 billion on the January 2, 2016 share price of J. B. Hunt (JBHT), as I was a personal advisor to the current Chairman, Kirk Thompson, between 1997 and 2001. I helped push for new Hours of Service regulations in the trucking industry that are estimated to save 210 lives per year since enactment in January, 2004. I was trained two years in Warren Buffett’s investment ideas under David Clark, who was trained by Warren from childhood. I was in the HQ Building making the Buffett case to their top executives when Exxon announced their merger with Mobil, the only logical move for a commoditized business in the context of Buffett’s ideas. I helped FBI Special Agent Byron Sage pick through David Koresh’s theology in 1993 during the Branch Davidian Situation. I served several years on the board of directors of an outdoor advertising ministry with Dr. Lee Roberson, Dr. Jack Hyles and Dr. Harold B. Sightler that challenged the theological views of Pope John Paul II in 1986-87, hitting news headlines on five continents. I am the first common citizen in U. S. History to gain a face-to-face meeting with the top floor of the IRS in Washington, D.C., covered in my memoir, “The Man Who Broke The Silence.” I helped legendary producer Aaron Russo make and promote his last movie, “America: Freedom To Fascism.” I have long been an avid student of Gandhian Philosophy, most closely associated with Arun Gandhi and Ravindra Kumar. In 2003, I coined the term, “state forced collectivism” for the English lexicon. A follower of my fellow ‘benevolent anarcho capitalist,’ Jesus Christ, my more enjoyable moments include email debates with Dr. Noam Chomsky, exploring the development of optimum human civilization. I am tested “genius level” (their words) in analytical reasoning, foresight, ideaphoria and three areas of musical aptitude. A high tenor, in 2010, I was placed on the backup list of the Dallas Opera. My song, “Texas Love Story,” is my most popular, and I finished vocals on my latest new song, “New World Order Blues” in August, 2015. My interests include Gandhian Philosophy (Tolstoyan Christianity), Economics, Justice and Purist Libertarianism. In 2006-07, I ran for President of the United States under the Libertarian Party banner. In 20013-14, I ran for Texas Governor under the Libertarian Party banner with the endorsement of Dr. Noam Chomsky, “Intellectual of the Age.” I am the Founder and CEO of the Libertarian Global Library and Book Exchange, and I am a board member of Austin Libertarian College/ Endowment. My motto: “You don’t want to get to the nursing home thinking, ‘Damn, I should have tried that,’ so get it done.” I held a beautiful woman in my arms more than once, looked into the eye of a whale off the coast of Maui, and God gave me the sunsets and sunrises; they belong to me.”
http://billingsgazette.com/which-political-party-do-you-identify-with/poll_e059d04c-c4ac-11e5-b9dc-c75770b71b44.html
In this on-line poll the LP is at 6.4%. This is the largest paper in Montana.
Thank you langa, interesting article.
I think people have been fed up with the 2 party system for a while. They just don’t feel like they have any other options in the higher offices. Many people don’t realize that even though they agree with some of what each of the big two say their values are, things have changed since Mom and Dad voted.
There needs to be a way to not have the idea of a third party, or fourth or fifth, be considered as though you are on the fringe. I’m not sure how we can accomplish that. I am hoping that when I take this conference in two weeks I will become inspired. I am hoping to get a lot out of it which is why I am going.
Oooooh, I should make calling cards so that it will make networking easier. Such a great idea.
Great Politico article on the Trump phenomenon by Tucker Carlson
Anyone interested in writing for American Third Party Report please contact me at [email protected] and I will sign you up.
The Reform Party has created a new store, this one is through Zazzle. Right now 200 designs and items are available. Another 200 are processing. http://www.zazzle.com/reformparty
Here is an interesting article on how people are getting fed up with both major parties:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article56995453.html
There’s lots going on with the Green Party this week — lots of stuff on Jill Stein. I haven’t seen any Green news here in a while.
Did Hillary Clinton really say no U.S. President has been a Supreme Court justice? If so, her knowledge of basic presidential history is embarrassing. William Howard Taft was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court after he was President.
Jill,
You don’t have to be a lawyer to serve on the Supreme Court. You just have to be appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.
He’d have to get his law license back.
I actually don’t think she’d do it. I think Hillary really can’t stand Obama, and he can’t stand her. After she’s elected, she won’t have to pretend anymore.
Now THIS is what I call scary.
Hillary Clinton: I’d Appoint Obama to the Supreme Court
http://www.infowars.com/hillary-clinton-id-appoint-obama-to-the-supreme-court/
Adam Kokesh: How government makes you less safe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtspq5T7B44
You could be me, but then you have to be older and have boring, brown hair.
Of course it helps if I could type without typos! 🙁
I have to do it each and every time.
On the sign-in thing:
I have to tpye my name and email the first time I comment, and then IPR remembers it and auto-enters until I turn the computer off.
So having to do it once a day at most is not such a hardship!
George,
My state appears to require State Membership to do anything.
And That (even though they don;t have one) Is based by the last Primary.
I never failed to vote in a Presidential Primary for someone since the day I could.
And Won’t this time even though they didn’t know how to tell petitioners how to fill out 2 lines of a certification right (When it asks who pays you, tell them…)
On recent numbers, IPR takes up about 1.6 GB of storage. Bandwidth is about 6 GB per day (over 170 GB in past 30 days) with an average of 4000 visitors per day (over 120,000 in the past 30).
Newest LPMass Facebook campaign statement at End the Surveillance State
Federal Surveillance—
Bringing the STASI to America
It is now revealed by the ACLU that the Federal Government has been using no-fly lists to turn people into Federal spies, planting them in religious institutions and community groups. For much more aclu.org/feature/unleashed-and-unaccountable (You may need to use a search engine to find this wonderful report).
The mechanism is simple. The Federal octopus waits until the victim has flown to a remote, particularly foreign, place. He is then placed on the no-fly list, unable to get home. In one case, the traveler was in the Yemen, and was given the alternatives of becoming a Federal spy, or being handed over to the Yemeni authorities. In another case “After questioning (the prospective victim) about his religious beliefs and practices, FBI agents told him that if he agreed to serve as an informant for the FBI, his name would be removed from the No Fly List and he would be compensated for his cooperation.”
Decent Americans will recognize this scheme. It’s completely UnAmerican. It’s the recruiting tactic of the East German Secret Police agency, the STASI, now brought to America. The important difference between the STASI and our Federal agencies is the spelling of the agency’s name.
For Americans who love our country, there is only one answer. The surveillance state must be brought to an end. Government officials who used their authority to trample our Bill fo Rights into the ground should be given fair trials.
To end the surveillance state, you need to play a part. Write your local newspaper. The message is simple. The surveillance state must end. And this year is an election year. All across Massachusetts candidates are appearing at public events and taking questions from the voters. Make your question: “I want my privacy back! What are you doing to end the Federal surveillance state?”
We’re the Libertarian Party, the party working to keep your private life private. For more on our party http://LPMass.org
Losty, “Member of State Party” and “registered/enrolled as member of a party” are in most states independent and unrelated. I do not know which state you are in. Ask your state party who *they* define membership. George
How much bandwidth does IPR use per month?
Just wondering. I have a co-lo server, but you’re probably better off going with something more professional than some random dude’s Linux box.
Chuck Moulton wrote:
Warren Redlich wrote:
I can do that if you want. Well, I’m not interested in playing around… just in fixing specific problems.
I researched this particular problem extensively. See my email to the list.
Chuck Moulton wrote:
Warren Redlich wrote:
Software providers (including WordPress) bundle security updates with feature changes. There is no reason that has to be (or should be) the case. Users need to band together and not put up with that nonsense.
@Warren
Just got off the phone with my service provider. I of course was having a senior moment and realized that the administrator of a forum doesn’t need server access once the forum is set up. The program takes care of all that.
I have space. I have a large traffic limit so if you are looking for space for a forum and would like to take me up on my offer, Thomas has my email address, well as administrator you do too. I would be more than happy to contribute to the IPR. I don’t have much to contribute, but when it comes to geeky things…I have lots.
I have been with this provider for over 20 years, yeah since dialup, and they are a solid company.
You can look them up. They are Sonic.net.
Because of an incident with a member of wikileaks, Sonic.net was the first provider that I know of who cleans their logs every 2 weeks or 4 weeks, I forget. Anyway, they respect our privacy and are very proactive with things like keeping my files and data safe and not letting the government see my emails or anything else really. I trust them completely and they are a really good company.
Losty,
“Even if I came and tried to fill a missing seat of another delegation, They would have to check with my home state.”
Nope. Your home state has nothing to do with it. You have to be EITHER a “national member” (i.e. to have signed the membership pledge), OR a member of the state party you join the delegation of. Just for example, if you are from Michigan and the Washington delegation offers you a seat, you do not have to be a member of the Michigan LP. You would have to be EITHER a national member or a Washington member.
Heck, I may want to receive something from Credentials to see if I could come down. Not looking likely, But if I were to, and not be seated?? Insanity.
Tom,
Weird, I was just told I could not be a delegate because I will not be a member of my state party. Even if I came and tried to fill a missing seat of another delegation, They would have to check with my home state.
Due to one of the most easiest things to fix, my state does not have a primary election for the party. Because of that I do not have to think about coming down. Hopefully I can help out the party, and if they can read one sentence on the back of the petition and have people fill that out, this will never be a problem again.
(My state goes to Primary voting to determine party affiliation, and I have Never missed a Primary election for President.
How do you post a picture or video??
I would be willing to do some research for you to find some systems to choose from that may work better.
Perhaps someone can start a post of things they like and dislike in forum. If they have other places they visit that they like, they can also offer up some URLs. I can easily find out what they are using unless it was custom made.
BTW, people rarely custom make anything.
WordPress is not really that unsecure, the problem with WordPress is that it is popular and open source. It’s a lot more fun for a hacker to hack a popular system than one that is barely used. BTW that’s why Apple kept saying they never got viruses or malware. No one was interested in messing with someones drawing or photos, they go for the big payloads, like a business.
If I ever get a job, I would be willing to host the forum on my ISP. They have one of the top most ratings for security and privacy from the EFF. Plus the owners are just old geeks like me. I have a business account with them, I don’t remember why I did that but oh well. I can see if there is a way to section off part of my space for the forum so others can have administrative access to it. I will call them today. I just spent 4 days cleaning up my files before I found out that my usage overage was in my email account, not my files so I should have space now. How much space does the forum take up, roughly?
I used to resist upgrading WordPress. But Warren’s points are both sound.
First, many hosts these days put the upgrades on rails and make it difficult or impossible to NOT accept WordPress upgrades.
Secondly, most major WordPress upgrades include security fixes for newly discovered vulnerabilities.
Over the years, before my own host put the upgrades into an automatic mode, I would have occasional site attacks (usually coming in via the mysql database systems) and outages, accompanied by nastygrams and “if you upgraded to the latest version, that attack wouldn’t work” messages from my host.
“the fact that the site administrator took a system that 99% of commenters liked for 7 years and broke it.”
I don’t recall that I wanted to change the commenting system. Maybe my mind is going, or was gone a long time ago. But I don’t remember saying that or setting out to do it.
“As for me, I think the solution is to simply un-break it.”
If someone has a magic wand so I can make this happen, please let me know. If someone skilled wants to play around with IPR in the sandbox our hosting service offers, I’m happy to set that up.
“The constant obsession to “upgrade” when things are working perfectly fine mystifies me. More often than not an “upgrade” turns out to be a downgrade, as features are removed and things are broken. I run several WordPress websites. I don’t “upgrade” and I have no problems.”
I’m sympathetic to this. I resist upgrades as long as I can, and not just on IPR. But unfortunately our hosting service (WP Engine) forces us to upgrade.
Also, the harsh reality is that there are bad people out there who find weaknesses in software. Upgrades are often done to patch those holes. It would be nice if WordPress was bulletproof but it ain’t so.
We will move to a different hosting service in the Spring, mainly to save money. WP Engine is very good but expensive. We use it to host IPR and my local news site WestBocaNews.com. They don’t generate enough revenue to pay for WP Engine. I’ve been testing out GoDaddy’s WordPress hosting for some of my other sites. It is doing well and costs a lot less. But that won’t solve the upgrade pressure. They force upgrades too.
These large hosting services face a steady stream of attacks so they insist on upgrades for security.
Alternatively if someone has a better hosting option I’m open to suggestions.
Considering that IPR is run at a loss, by volunteers, I try not to complain too much. But, in my opinion, this website was better in 2008 than it is today. I liked the layout, and especially the numbered comments. This latest thing is a not insignificant change for the worse as well.
With that said, I do very much value this website. And I appreciate that it exists at all. It costs me nothing, but brings me a lot of entertainment and information. So, I hope that my comments will be viewed as constructive criticism, moreso than complaints.
Discus may be a better product. I have not compared them.
LiveFyre is local, right here in San Francisco. And the one thing I like about them is that they support the Open Source movement. That is huge for an old timer like me.
Shivany,
I have no problem with LiveFyre on the sites where I’ve come across it (the first one that pops to mind is Salon.com). A few years ago, I spent considerable time putting various systems up against each other and ended up going with Disqus for my own sites, but LiveFyre ran a close second. I don’t remember what tipped the scale for me.
@Caryn Ann, Try Chrome as your browser, it has autofill and you just have to select the text box and it gives you a list to choose from that you have used for name and email, provided…ahem…you have more than one name and email like some of us geeks.
@Thomas
I have a friend who works at LiveFyre, they are compretitors with Discus. Much better product but a good commenting system is a good system, just saying, he is a friend and all.
Thomas L. Knapp wrote:
I can certainly understand why someone who always hated the commenting system would like the fact that the site administrator took a system that 99% of commenters liked for 7 years and broke it. Never let a crisis go to waste.
As for me, I think the solution is to simply un-break it. That’s what I’ve been advocating since I first reported the problem.
This whole ordeal highlights something I’ve believed for decades: if it ain’t broke, don’t mess with it. The constant obsession to “upgrade” when things are working perfectly fine mystifies me. More often than not an “upgrade” turns out to be a downgrade, as features are removed and things are broken. I run several WordPress websites. I don’t “upgrade” and I have no problems. All the other websites I use run by other people “upgrade” and they have a never ending string of problems.
I’m a little bit re-energized about commenting. I finally talked Antiwar.com into installing real commenting, also known as Disqus. I’ll keep trying to coax IPR into the 21st century on that as well.
I do and I hate it.
“now users have to re-type that information every time they leave a comment.”
Not all users.
paulie wrote:
I can certainly understand that happening, given that IPR used to save name / email / website (from the start of IPR on May 20, 2008 until January 11, 2016) but now users have to re-type that information every time they leave a comment. Anyone who comments often is bound to typo occasionally if he has a long email address.
Different screen name/email combination than before. It autoholds it for approval if you change the email address you enter in the box.
Thanks for the lookup, Caryn!
Tom, it seems like just a pledged member:
3. Delegates:
a. Delegates shall be required to be members of either the Party or an affiliate party. At all
Regular Conventions delegates shall be those so accredited who have registered at the
Convention. At all Non-Regular Conventions, any person who wishes to attend may do
so.
Losty, you must have signed in with a different computer. The spam filter is set to have one of the editors check each time a new person/IP leaves a comment. It shouldn’t happen any more.
Losty,
IIRC, you have to be EITHER a member of the national organization OR of the state party you’re representing, to be a delegate. Membership dues vary from state to state. I don’t recall whether or not the national membership option requires that you be a “sustaining” member ($25 a year) or just a pledged (no cost) member.
Mark,
re: ‘Did Someone Contact Mr. McAfee”
that was more for Wes, to see if he would like to be placed on the Oregon Primary ballot…
And if anyone Knows How to get ahold of Mr. Imperiato? Heck, In this year of craziness in Politics he may get some votes too… But that was an attempt at Humor for Wes as well. Bur good on you for getting Mr. McAfee for your debate…
Mark,
I am sorry, I just realized that NY requires Petitioners to be In State I believe, and I do not qualify for Ny Residency.
Sorry.
(And Losty 😉 )
Also, can someone explain “awaiting Moderation”?
I have never seen that before on my posts…
thanks!
Question: LP
Since my state is not holding a Primary, What is the donation required to be a sustaining member, and as such have the possibility of being permitted to be a delegate (From my state or another) in Orlando,
And does that have to go to National or a State, and can that be an In-Kind donation to a candidate or a party affiliate?
Question: LP
Since the state I reside in does not have a Primary this year, What is the level of funding one needs to be a “Sustaining Member” of the party, and the possible voting member for National consideration?
And, can that be In Kind to a candidate or an affiliate state party?
JWEvans,
I can see why the United Independents are not having a primary for president, but how did they manage to avoid electing their State Committee via the primary, as the law requires?
George
http://www.infowars.com/video-rand-paul-blasts-trump-as-a-power-hungry-delusional-fake-conservative-narcissist/
>And did someone contact Mr. McAfee?
I did, for the LPNY Convention on April 30, and is attending as well as several other Pres. candidates.
For any interested readers, I did a write-up on the four March 1st Massachusetts primaries, including a semi-informative focus on the Green-Rainbow Party, United Independent Party, and even the Libertarian Party. If anything, I have the official ballot order for the Green-Rainbow Party, among others.
Article can be found here:
http://jwevans.co/2016/01/23/the-circus-comes-to-the-bay-state/
I love feedback, as always.
Make that
Make that:
Johnson 2016 has filed its organizational statement.
Johnson 2012 filed its 2015 end of year statement. Its total debt at that point was
$1,538,118.
Johnson 2012 has filed its organizational statement.
Johnson 2012 filed its 2015 end of year statement. Its total debt at that point was
$1,538,118.
I doubt that Trump’s narcissism is actually significantly worse than that of his fellow presidential aspirants. It’s just that since he’s new to electoral politics, he hasn’t learned to filter as much of it from his rhetoric — in business, it can apparently be something of an asset. We’ve been down this road before, and some of us even fell for it. Like some Libertarians did with Root, and like I did before I was a libertarian, with Perot.
But set the rhetoric aside and consider Hillary Clinton. This is her second “inevitable” campaign, and the second in which it looks like she might get her clock cleaned as she did last time. Scratch the surface even a little and it becomes obvious that she’s at least a narcissist and possibly a solipsist. She obviously can’t even conceive of the notion that something as trivial as, you know, the LAW, applies to her, and seems to be sincere in her belief that only someone completely insane could possibly believe that it does.
He takes it to a whole other level.
Must be why he wants to “bomb the shit” out of ISIS, have the “strongest” (most expensive) military ever, close mosques, monitor Muslims, halt Muslim immigration, torture people even if it yields no information “because they deserve it,” continue and step up domestic surveillance… and that’s just for starters. Sounds like a great formula for peace.
Who in turn was quoting the ancient Romans.
And telling the truth about him is not “name calling.” Name calling is what he frequently does to others though.
Lots of dictators and demagogues have been popular. So what?
Hi Lotsy,
Not quite sure what your question about New York petitioning was.
Unfortunately, we have to do it this year and again in 2018 to get candidates on the ballot. Our number for statewide candidates, which includes Pres./VP is 15,000 valid sigs. in six weeks. Four years ago, we did 25,000 for the Johnson/Gray ticket.
>“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” — Barry Goldwater
A great quote, but of course Goldwater did not write it. Karl Hess, editor emeritus of the LP News, did.
BTW, I am catching up on IPR and must commend Chuck and others for their fine lists of intro reading, etc. for Shivany. Burt Folsom’s Robber Barons book is particularly good inclusion.
“Their greatest fear, of course, is that Trump will seek to use his legendary bargaining/deal-making skills to pursue peace rather than perpetual war in the Middle East.”
I and Thomas DiLorenzo may both be wrong but the article about reaction to the recent NR Trump special issue is interesting.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/isnt-enough-make-want-vote-trump/
Thomas,
As a “Paper Candidate” Just to cost him the nomination?
You would just need for all intents and purposes to stick around in the General, Basically anyone but him appears to be the overwhelming consensus in this group.
Wes,
With a list like that, Do you still have a contact for Daniel Imperiato?
And did someone contact Mr. McAfee?
Honestly, I don’t think Trump’s narcissism is at all unusual in politics. I would say somewhere around 95% of politicians display strong signs of narcissism. It’s just that most of them make more of an attempt to hide those signs than Trump does.
Paulie,
Thank you. I hope that Scott Adams and his various thought experiments will do more to persuade voters. So far all the name calling and negative coverage doesn’t seem to reduce Donald Trump support.
“My Offer to Stop Donald Trump” by Scott Adams
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/134861704021/my-offer-to-stop-donald-trump
Szasz is wrong. See https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=narcissistic+personality+disorder&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 and there is great need to worry if Trump is selected President, just as there was when Hitler was selected Chancellor, for the exact same reasons. See above.
Narcissist: psychoanalytic term for the person who loves himself more than his analyst; considered to be the manifestation of a dire mental disease whose successful treatment depends on the patient learning to love the analyst more and himself less.
Thomas Szasz
Clearly all this coverage of Donald Trump will inform and educate enough people that there is no need to worry that he will be elected President. Scott Adams book God’s Debris: A Thought Experiment will soon have a sales dip. 56% of reviews give it five stars.
Later in the alternet piece:
What happens when another world leader who is a loose cannon doesn’t give Trump the admiration that he feels he deserves? We can be sure that notoriously anti-American dictators like Kim Jong-un of North Korea or Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei aren’t going to give him any respect, let alone praise. How would a President Trump react when he feels he is being put down or undermined? Will we see the start of World War III because the leader of the most important nation in the world doesn’t feel that others are kissing his ass as much as they should be? Narcissistic personality disorder is known to have strong negative effects on relationships, and when it comes to being an effective and responsible world leader, diplomacy is everything.
And from Alternet, also linked above:
This puts Trump in the same category as a number of infamous dictators like Muammar Gaddafi, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Saddam Hussein. And although there are narcissists out there who entertain us, innovate, or create great art, when a narcissist is given immense power over people’s lives, they can behave much differently. As the 2016 presidential election grows nearer we must ask ourselves, if elected president would Donald Trump act on the behalf of the will of the people, or would he behave more like a dictator—silencing any dissenting voices, perpetually refusing to compromise, and being oppressive to certain groups? To answer that, we should ask a little bit more about what makes a narcissist tick, and how they tend to behave when given free rein.
From the Vanity Fair piece linked above:
For mental-health professionals, Donald Trump is at once easily diagnosed but slightly confounding. “Remarkably narcissistic,” said developmental psychologist Howard Gardner, a professor at Harvard Graduate School of Education. “Textbook narcissistic personality disorder,” echoed clinical psychologist Ben Michaelis. “He’s so classic that I’m archiving video clips of him to use in workshops because there’s no better example of his characteristics,” said clinical psychologist George Simon, who conducts lectures and seminars on manipulative behavior. “Otherwise, I would have had to hire actors and write vignettes. He’s like a dream come true.”
That mental-health professionals are even willing to talk about Trump in the first place may attest to their deep concern about a Trump presidency. As Dr. Robert Klitzman, a professor of psychiatry and the director of the master’s of bioethics program at Columbia University, pointed out, the American Psychiatric Association declares it unethical for psychiatrists to comment on an individual’s mental state without examining him personally and having the patient’s consent to make such comments. This so-called Goldwater rule arose after the publication of a 1964 Fact magazine article in which psychiatrists were polled about Senator Barry Goldwater’s fitness to be president. Senator Goldwater brought a $2 million suit against the magazine and its publisher; the Supreme Court awarded him $1 in compensatory damages and $75,000 in punitive damages.
But you don’t need to have met Donald Trump to feel like you know him; even the smallest exposure can make you feel like you’ve just crossed a large body of water in a small boat with him. Indeed, though narcissistic personality disorder was removed from the most recent issue of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, for somewhat arcane reasons, the traits that have defined the disorder in the past—grandiosity; an expectation that others will recognize one’s superiority; a lack of empathy—are writ large in Mr. Trump’s behavior.
“He’s very easy to diagnose,” said psychotherapist Charlotte Prozan. “In the first debate, he talked over people and was domineering. He’ll do anything to demean others, like tell Carly Fiorina he doesn’t like her looks. ‘You’re fired!’ would certainly come under lack of empathy. And he wants to deport immigrants, but [two of] his wives have been immigrants.” Michaelis took a slightly different twist on Trump’s desire to deport immigrants: “This man is known for his golf courses, but, with due respect, who does he think works on these golf courses?”
Mr. Trump’s bullying nature—taunting Senator John McCain for being captured in Vietnam, or saying Jeb Bush has “low energy”—is in keeping with the narcissistic profile.
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/11/donald-trump-narcissism-therapists
“According to a number of top U.S. psychologists, like Harvard professor and researcher Howard Gardener, Donald Trump is a “textbook” narcissist. In fact, he fits the profile so well that clinical psychologist George Simon told Vanity Fair, “He’s so classic that I’m archiving video clips of him to use in workshops.” ”
Is Donald Trump Actually a Narcissist? Therapists Weigh In!
Dan Clore and Robert Butler posted in Robert Anton Wilson Fans.
Dan Clore
January 21 at 9:12pm
If it is not clear how the promise of great power can change an essentially harmless narcissist into someone oppressive, let’s see how Donald Trump’s political views have changed thus far. Prior to this presidential race, most of us knew Donald Trump as a charismatic, cheeky, highly entertaining figure that seemed like anything but a bigot. Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York told CNN that the Trump he knew, and the Trump New York knew, was nothing like the intolerant xenophobe he appears to be today. It is a well-known fact that in the past Trump was a registered democrat who was in favor of liberal causes like abortion rights and pals with the Clintons. But since the promise of power has consumed him, he has become the poster boy for ultra-right wing intolerance. This change in personality and core values perfectly illustrates how the promise of power can transform narcissists. And as the race for the Republican nominee progresses, it has become increasingly obvious that Trump’s yearning to rule greatly exceeds his desire to “Make America Great Again,” as his slogan says.
A Neuroscientist Explains: Trump Has a Mental Disorder That Makes Him a Dangerous World Leader
A lack of empathy is just one part of narcissistic personality disorder.
By Bobby Azarian / Raw Story
January 19, 2016
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/neuroscientist-explains-trump-has-mental-disorder-makes-him-dangerous-world-leader
Current list of Oregon Primary Presidential Candidates:
Barbara “Miss Joy” Waymire
Darryl W. Perry
Derrick Michael Reid
Rhett Smith
Cecil Ince
Nathan Norman
Gary Johnson
Current list of Oregon Primary Presidential Candidates:
Barbara “Miss Joy” Waymire
Darryl W. Perry
Derrick Michael Reid
Rhett Smith
Cecil Ince
Nathan Norman
Gary Johnson
@George
“Kinder, Kirche, Kueche Antiabortion, religious tie-ins, women should be at home in the kitchen ”
I don’t have a computer in the kitchen. What am I expected to do all day?
Then the question becomes, what happens when I can’t have the kinder anymore?
We have ben watching a wonderful series on the TV called “Foyles War”. This is the latest season and and the issue comes up where the women who worked in the factories during the war are now being told to go home and make babies. Life was very oppressive back then for women. I am so glad I live in the 21st century where I’m not expected to stay home and make babies, but I still make less than men for equal work and there are so few women in my profession. Though you can’t get anyone to admit it.
I am amused sometimes by the way they try to hide their gender bias.
I’m embarassed I had to look up authoritarianism.
So what you are really trying to sya is…
“Freedom of choice, is what you’ve got, freedom from choice is what you want”? 10 points if you can name the song, bonus if you know the band!
We can look the Republicans straight in the eye, point at Trump and say… “You built that”.
My children are 31 and 33. a little old to be of this generation. They call this set of adults Millennials.
My question is, where are the hippies? I was a hippy. I did my duty and raised not one but 2 hippy like children. What happened to the Baby Boomers. Did they sell out? I didn’t. Which is probably why i am not wealthy and unemployed. What generation is going to get us out of this incredible mess we find ourselves in?
I think I have one more fight in me left and I am going to do all i can to make sure that we at least do not elect another Celebrity with mush for brains who speaks in slogans. And who woke up Sarah Palin? I though maybe she was still hibernating like a Momma Bear is supposed to at this time of year. Instead she shows up on my TV wearing a dress that confused my sense of design and gravity. Seriously what was that silvery thing she was wearing? OK, now I am going back to bed.
I just had to get some kind of comment in on that authoritarian thing.
And yes, the comparisons between Trump and Hitler are most appropriate.
Hitler never really had a plan either. People were prosperous and working because it was all for the war effort and he was mortgaging their future. Now what I find incredibly interesting is all the Well respected old money families today who made their fortunes working with the Nazis. At the time we were not at war with them. Does anyone know where Trump’s daddy made his money from? I know the Kochs and the Bush family got their wealth from working with the Third Reich. Look it up.
Trump is selling a fairy story of making America Great Again, as if we had been great and now are not great.
Hitler sold the same type of fairy story to the German people. Look where it got them. Ok now I am depressed….time for bed.
It is a distressing situation that our young people don’t seem to appreciate the right we all have to say what we want. I tend to think this strange time where everyone seems to be offended by everything will run its course soon. It’s too obviously ridiculous, and when these young people get older they’ll get over it.
I hope you are right, and that it’s just a passing fad. But I’m not optimistic, because this intolerance toward dissenting viewpoints is something that young people are being indoctrinated with by our educational system, especially at the college level. To some extent, it was already starting to happen when I was in college 15-20 years ago, and since then, as far as I can tell, it has gotten far, far worse.
I am someone who has discussed political correctness here at IPR. I do not deny its existence, and I actually do see it everywhere on FB and in the mainstream news. To make it clear, my point here was that many conservatives and people on the right seem to automatically write-off anyone’s opinion that differs from theirs as just someone trying to be “pc”. In other words, they can’t believe anyone really disagrees; they think the opposer is just trying to say what they think they’re supposed to say. Obviously, that’s absurd.
Oh, I agree that many people on the right overuse the concept of political correctness, and to some extent, their constant use of it has trivialized the term. But political correctness is a very real, and very dangerous, phenomenon.
It’s similar to the way that some people on the left are so eager to play the racism card, by accusing, for example, anyone who criticizes Obama or his policies of being a racist. Obviously, that’s absurd, and because they do it so often, it’s easy to just dismiss any charge of racism as BS. But actual racism does exist. The same is true of political correctness. Like accusations of racism, accusations of political correctness are often just political posturing, but not always, and in both cases, when they do occur, they need to be pointed out and condemned.
The person I had the problem with here was “Jim”, whom I ended up being fairly sure was trolling us. Anytime I didn’t agree with his dislike of groups of people, or otherwise had a different opinion of his, he told me I was just being “politically correct”. He probably just kept doing it because it irritated me so much, and then I just got tired of talking to him, as did Paulie at about the same time. Jim actually wrote to Warren Redlich and whined like a baby that we wouldn’t argue with him anymore. Hilarious! So, ironically, he didn’t even think we had to right not to speak.
It is a distressing situation that our young people don’t seem to appreciate the right we all have to say what we want. I tend to think this strange time where everyone seems to be offended by everything will run its course soon. It’s too obviously ridiculous, and when these young people get older they’ll get over it.
I am someone who has discussed political correctness here at IPR. I do not deny its existence, and I actually do see it everywhere on FB and in the mainstream news. To make it clear, my point here was that many conservatives and people on the right seem to automatically write-off anyone’s opinion that differs from theirs as just someone trying to be “pc”. In other words, they can’t believe anyone really disagrees; they think the opposer is just trying to say what they think they’re supposed to say. Obviously, that’s absurd.
Are people really not understanding my point? Or, am I misunderstanding what the phrase is supposed to mean? Are people really trying to write off genuine consideration of others as simply an exercise in being “politically correct”?
Some here on IPR seem to get upset whenever anyone brings up the subject of political correctness. They deny that such a thing exists, or at least argue that it is not a serious threat to freedom.
Here is another example of why that line of thinking is naive. A graduate student at Duke argued (in the school paper) that there is no fundamental difference between “hate speech” and murder.
http://dailycaller.com/2016/01/20/duke-student-free-speech-expression-of-white-supremacy/
Also, note the chilling statistic in the last paragraph. How are libertarians ever going to reach the young and persuade them of the truth of our message if we are banned from even communicating it? (And make no mistake — the kind of people promoting this kind of censorship are exactly the kind of people who would classify basic libertarian arguments, like freedom of association, as “hate speech”)
The research study’s definition of “authoritarian”, however, is none of he above. It is, quoting from the Politico article cited above:
“Political pollsters have missed this key component of Trump’s support because they simply don’t include questions about authoritarianism in their polls. In addition to the typical battery of demographic, horse race, thermometer-scale and policy questions, my poll asked a set of four simple survey questions that political scientists have employed since 1992 to measure inclination toward authoritarianism. These questions pertain to child-rearing: whether it is more important for the voter to have a child who is respectful or independent; obedient or self-reliant; well-behaved or considerate; and well-mannered or curious. Respondents who pick the first option in each of these questions are strongly authoritarian.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/donald-trump-2016-authoritarian-213533#ixzz3xmvzxZ67“
Republican fascism. Lets see:
Glorification of the military
Secret police listening to everything
Opposition to social liberties,e.g., abortion
Launch colonial wars that you keep losing, just like Mussolini
Extraction for benefit of the rich, e.g. bailout
Corporate socialist — tax and other subsidies for alrge businesses and corporations.
glorification of agriculture, e.g. farm welfare
Racism — core of Republican party is southern white racists
Reality denial — denial of global warming, evolution, safety of abortions
Kinder, Kirche, Kueche Antiabortion, religious tie-ins, women should be at home in the kitchen (first three words are in the original German)
Racism — antiMexican
Propaganda base — Faux news
Yep, they’re showing a whole pile of classic signs of fascism. The magazine article’s use of ‘authoritarian’ is fairly orthodox, though not completely; the word may however have chosen to be pejorative.
Darcy,
Thank you for your longstanding support of my various political projects — but let me state unequivocally and in the most Shermanesque possible manner that there are no circumstances under which I will run for US Senate this year.
“Any Libertarian from any part of the country who is willing to move to Florida from any part of the country by election day 2016 is eligible to run against Invictus (and possibly Stone) for the Florida LP US Senate nomination.” — Paulie
My own preference, of course, is that Libertarians should encourage a candidate who has already made the 883-mile trip from out-of-state — and did it a few years ago. If we could raise the money for the $10,440 filing fee and assist with transportation and occasional lodging, I think it would make a great deal of sense to urge Tom Knapp to seriously consider running for the U.S. Senate.
According to his FEC filings, Invictus had raised nearly $1,700 as of September 30th. His latest filing, covering the period from October 1 through December 31, 2015, has not yet been posted on the FEC’s website. That quarterly report, incidentally, isn’t due until January 31. His cash-on-hand, as of September 30, was only $317.
In any case, it appears that his largest contributor as of that date was a young guy from Daytona Beach — the general manager of something called True Science Holdings LLC — who contributed $1,000 back in May. Two other individuals chipped in $250 and $200, respectively.
Any Libertarian from any part of the country who is willing to move to Florida from any part of the country by election day 2016 is eligible to run against Invictus (and possibly Stone) for the Florida LP US Senate nomination. The only requirements are being over 30 years old, and US citizen for at least 9 years. http://dos.myflorida.com/media/695459/federal-qualifying-handbook.pdf
Florida says they can’t have been registered to vote with another party for 365 days, and there are residency length requirements for other non-federal offices, but not federal office.
I have a possible candidate, but additional ones are also welcome. Anyone want to run in Florida?
Yes, you do need to have or raise $10,000 to qualify for the actual ballot, but Invictus does not have it yet either as far as I know. For all I know he hasn’t raised a penny and may or may not, other than some gas money. Anyone who declares their intent to run can start on working to raise the money.
Furthermore, the Politico article explains why Trump’s fascist authoritarianism is likely to win in the general election, placing him in the White House and in a perfect position to start the next World War and holocaust starting with his Hitler-like plans for mass roundups and deportations, bombing the shit out of ISIS or whoever else the boogeyman or enemy is, having the strongest military in history, trade wars, torture for the sheer joy of it, intimidating journalists and protesters, tracking minority religions and shutting down their places of worship, and authoritarian controls over those entering the Homeland. Of course, as we can note from the videos I posted above, Hitler also started with similar baby steps and had the exact same personality type as Herr von Trump.
This will put Trump in the ultimate position to “trump” other world leaders and spell his name in giant letters with nuclear fireballs on the surface of the planet, leaving it devoid of all life with only the world TRUMP to be seen from space for any who visit this planet in the next few billion years, the ultimate fulfillment of his boundless megalomaniacal ego. It’s the only way to conclusively, with total finality, demonstrate that he is the biggest and baddest winner of all time, the ultimate Don, the Trump who trumps all other Trumps now and forever, the guy who not only wins the ultimate game but wins it so conclusively that there is no point in anyone else ever playing again.
But we’re getting way too far ahead of ourselves. Back to politico, looking at the more immediate next few steps of the story:
“So what does this mean for the election? It doesn’t just help us understand what motivates Trump’s backers—it suggests that his support isn’t capped. In a statistical analysis of the polling results, I found that Trump has already captured 43 percent of Republican primary voters who are strong authoritarians, and 37 percent of Republican authoritarians overall. A majority of Republican authoritarians in my poll also strongly supported Trump’s proposals to deport 11 million illegal immigrants, prohibit Muslims from entering the United States, shutter mosques and establish a nationwide database that track Muslims.
And in a general election, Trump’s strongman rhetoric will surely appeal to some of the 39 percent of independents in my poll who identify as authoritarians and the 17 percent of self-identified Democrats who are strong authoritarians.
What’s more, the number of Americans worried about the threat of terrorism is growing. In 2011, Hetherington published research finding that non-authoritarians respond to the perception of threat by behaving more like authoritarians. More fear and more threats—of the kind we’ve seen recently in the San Bernardino and Paris terrorist attacks—mean more voters are susceptible to Trump’s message about protecting Americans.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/donald-trump-2016-authoritarian-213533
And also note again this section in seeing how they determine what is or isn’t authoritarian from huffpo link above:
What most fundamentally distinguishes authoritarians, as we explained in detail in our book, are three inter-related sets of attitudes about which they are, collectively, adamant: 1) an especially strong propensity to divide the world into us vs. them and a concomitant intolerance of outgroups perceived as threats to America’s existing social fabric; 2) projecting strength in the most straightforward, uncompromising way possible; and 3) the related perils following from the breakdown of law and order.
That, in a nutshell, is Trump’s campaign.
In response to TLK’s point, from the politico link above:
“Political pollsters have missed this key component of Trump’s support because they simply don’t include questions about authoritarianism in their polls. In addition to the typical battery of demographic, horse race, thermometer-scale and policy questions, my poll asked a set of four simple survey questions that political scientists have employed since 1992 to measure inclination toward authoritarianism. These questions pertain to child-rearing: whether it is more important for the voter to have a child who is respectful or independent; obedient or self-reliant; well-behaved or considerate; and well-mannered or curious. Respondents who pick the first option in each of these questions are strongly authoritarian.
Based on these questions, Trump was the only candidate—Republican or Democrat—whose support among authoritarians was statistically significant.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/donald-trump-2016-authoritarian-213533
Corrected error at 07:58
That quote was from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-weiler/demystifying-the-trump-co_b_8089380.html not the politico article I first cited
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/donald-trump-2016-authoritarian-213533, since the politico article has caused me to do some additional investigation… but apparently I didn’t make sure the copy and paste worked correctly. Now fixed.
TLK, good point. From http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/authoritarianism-in-american-politics/
“The first point Hetherington and Weiler make is that authoritarianism is really about order–achieving it, maintaining it, and affirming it–and especially when citizens are uncertain or fearful. This, they say, is why authoritarians seek out and elevate, well, authorities–because authorities impose order on an otherwise disordered world. They provide a useful review the existing literature on authoritarian traits, which have been connected to negative racist stereotyping, a belief in biblical inerrancy, a preference for simple rather than complex problem-solving, and low levels of political information.”
That’s an interesting piece — I found it and shared it on Facebook yesterday.
One argument against its premise is over the definition of the word “authoritarian.”
Looking at Democrats and Republicans from a libertarian perspective, they both look pretty damn authoritarian.
The conclusion I and a couple of other people discussing the matter came to is that the author is using “authoritarian” to mean “people who look to the idea of a strong LEADER” as opposed to “people who look to the idea of a strong GOVERNMENT.”
That is, the authoritarians this author is referring to are people who want a “man on horseback” to “save the country,” a la the old European fascist fuhrerprinzip or the Latin American caudillo/jefe model. That definitely seems to be a big Republican draw right now, at least at the Trump/Cruz end of the spectrum. Where the other kind of authoritarian, who’s perfectly happy with an oppressive government as long as it seems to function according to the desires of some broad social consensus, remains comfortably at home in the Democratic Party.
Of course it all turns out the same in the end. George W. Bush doesn’t strike me as really that different from Hugo Chavez, or Barack Obama as terribly divergent from Anastasio Somoza. Sanders is at least as like Pinochet as like Allende. Clinton could just as easily be Elena Ceaucescu or Eva Peron.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2015/11/05/washington-doesnt-work-this-new-book-tells-us-why/
“…Second, Republicans often trust the government a lot, even though being anti-government is supposed to be part of what makes them Republicans. When one of their own occupies the White House, they are quite pro-government. The only times trust in government among any of these partisan groups has cleared 50 percent since Watergate have been among Republicans when Reagan and the Bushes were president.
Third, trust is higher when foreign policy is salient; people like and trust the parts of government that deal with foreign affairs (such as the military) a lot more than those that deal with domestic affairs. Note how high trust was during the scariest days of the Cold War in the late 1950s and early 1960s and how high it got in the couple years just after September 11, 2001. When we think about the government as protecting us, we trust it.”
And:
“As we showed in our analysis of the Clinton/Obama primary fight in 2008, in our book, as well as in analysis of election data from 2010 and 2012, what distinguishes Democratic from Republican voters among whites isn’t education level or income level. It’s authoritarianism. The data are consistent in this – low authoritarian white folks with less than a college education, or who earn less than the median income, overwhelmingly support Democrats. Conversely, whites with high incomes and high education levels but who also score high in authoritarianism strongly support Republicans. In other words, it’s not “working-class whites” per se, who support very conservative candidates. It’s authoritarians, whether they are working class or not. This, too, is consistent with the composition of the (not-so-mysterious) Trump coalition.”
Shorter pull quote repeated for even greater emphasis:
“As recently as 1992, when Bill Clinton first won the presidency, authoritarian-minded voters were about as likely to vote Democratic as they were to vote Republican. That is no longer the case. By 2004, white voters with an authoritarian bent had stampeded to the exits of the Democratic Party and joined the GOP. Conversely, the once large number of non-authoritarians who formerly supported Republicans had largely shifted their support to Team Blue. Those trends have only intensified since then, particularly in the age of Barack Obama. This development, the product in significant part of a decades-long shift in party appeals and changing demographics has fueled a bitterly acrimonious political divide characterized by fundamental and irreconcilable differences in worldview between the average Republican and the average Democrat.
While authoritarians have become central to the contemporary conservative coalition, they are not coterminous with it. In our book, we showed that Republicans, driven by the growing number of authoritarians in their ranks, had become increasingly intolerant of outgroups, including African Americans, gays, and Muslims. Likewise, a strong preference for black-and-white thinking in resolving major issues – like using military force to resolve global conflicts – had become characteristic of mainstream Republicanism, again influenced by the swelling numbers of authoritarians among their number.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-weiler/demystifying-the-trump-co_b_8089380.html
Demystifying the Trump Coalition: It’s the Authoritarianism
excerpt:
Ever since Donald Trump surged to the lead in the fight for the GOP presidential nomination, pundits have struggled to understand the Trump phenomenon. His somewhat eclectic views – he’s a conservative apostate on tax increases for the wealthy, for example – and the particular intensity of the anger from which he seems to have drawn and stoked, often directed at conservative mainstays themselves, have all contributed to a sense that Trump is hard to place politically. Trump and his supporters, it seems, are not so clearly anchored in any identifiably traditional conservative constituency like, say, evangelicals, or white working-class voters (an issue to which I’ll return).
But the basis of Trump’s support isn’t all that much of a mystery. In fact, his appeals are crafted – intentionally or not – to appeal to a bulwark of the contemporary Republican Party. That constituency is authoritarians.
As Marc Hetherington and I explained in our 2009 book, Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics, one of the key dynamics underlying the growing political chasm in the United States over the past generation has been the sorting of people with very different worldviews – anchored in polar personality types – into the two major political camps in America. As recently as 1992, when Bill Clinton first won the presidency, authoritarian-minded voters were about as likely to vote Democratic as they were to vote Republican. That is no longer the case. By 2004, white voters with an authoritarian bent had stampeded to the exits of the Democratic Party and joined the GOP. Conversely, the once large number of non-authoritarians who formerly supported Republicans had largely shifted their support to Team Blue. Those trends have only intensified since then, particularly in the age of Barack Obama. This development, the product in significant part of a decades-long shift in party appeals and changing demographics has fueled a bitterly acrimonious political divide characterized by fundamental and irreconcilable differences in worldview between the average Republican and the average Democrat.
While authoritarians have become central to the contemporary conservative coalition, they are not coterminous with it. In our book, we showed that Republicans, driven by the growing number of authoritarians in their ranks, had become increasingly intolerant of outgroups, including African Americans, gays, and Muslims. Likewise, a strong preference for black-and-white thinking in resolving major issues – like using military force to resolve global conflicts – had become characteristic of mainstream Republicanism, again influenced by the swelling numbers of authoritarians among their number.
So far, this sounds like a description of Republicans generally. But we also found that authoritarians were less reliably conservative on other key issues associated with the GOP. For example, the conservative economic agenda resonated less well with authoritarians than with other conservatives, quite consistent with how Trump is positioning himself. And though he’s now pro-life, it’s evident that Trump’s newly minted views on that issue are half-hearted. As it happens, those scoring high in authoritarianism were themselves not especially distinguished in their support for the pro-life position. Those are two critical planks of the modern conservative platform and on neither are authoritarians particularly adamant, as a group.
What most fundamentally distinguishes authoritarians, as we explained in detail in our book, are three inter-related sets of attitudes about which they are, collectively, adamant: 1) an especially strong propensity to divide the world into us vs. them and a concomitant intolerance of outgroups perceived as threats to America’s existing social fabric; 2) projecting strength in the most straightforward, uncompromising way possible; and 3) the related perils following from the breakdown of law and order.
That, in a nutshell, is Trump’s campaign.
Full article well worth reading!
Oops, full link:
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/donald-trump-2016-authoritarian-213533
If I asked you what most defines Donald Trump supporters, what would you say? They’re white? They’re poor? They’re uneducated?
You’d be wrong.
In fact, I’ve found a single statistically significant variable predicts whether a voter supports Trump—and it’s not race, income or education levels: It’s authoritarianism.
*****
Authoritarianism is not a new, untested concept in the American electorate. Since the rise of Nazi Germany, it has been one of the most widely studied ideas in social science. While its causes are still debated, the political behavior of authoritarians is not. Authoritarians obey. They rally to and follow strong leaders. And they respond aggressively to outsiders, especially when they feel threatened. From pledging to “make America great again” by building a wall on the border to promising to close mosques and ban Muslims from visiting the United States, Trump is playing directly to authoritarian inclinations.
The One Weird Trait That Predicts Whether You’re a Trump Supporter
http://www.politico.com
And it’s not gender, age, income, race or religion.
Not me. I hope she’s OK.
I have been aware for a couple weeks now that Joy Waymire has not been heard from, at least on Facebook. Her last post was December 3. I sent her an email a few weeks ago through her website, but haven’t heard from her.
Has anyone heard anything from her?
Darryl will live blog in comments
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2016/01/libertarian-party-of-new-hampshire-annual-convention-live-blogging-in-comments/
At one time, I don’t know if they still do, LPNH chose some “committed” delegates at their state conventions. That is, the convention attendees would vote on which presidential candidate they preferred, then choose a delegate who supported that candidate.
If they’re still doing that, I’ll be interested to know which presidential candidate wins any poll or gets a delegate.
I hope to hear from Darryl.
The LP-NH convention is today. Do we have anybody reporting on that?
I assume some of our regulars will be there, hopefully they’ll let us know of any news.
Shivany,
Someone went to the Last Convention wearing Confederate grey I think, So Pretty Much any Clothes would be Better. Clothes are required though…
I think
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGVBn_3EjmE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYiQN1zjb68
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeXjcLIenJI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajqWJEVKMLc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtMeOqXPDH4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHE4BqCLO0g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZL2UlN8glU
https://youtu.be/ufeliruQBDg
Republican cheapskate underpays relative to Libertarian 2012
https://politicalwire.com/2016/01/14/carson-finance-chair-quits-campaign/
Carson Finance Chair Quits Campaign
January 14, 2016By Taegan Goddard7 Comments
Ben Carson’s national finance chairman resigned amid questions about his use of campaign funds and criticism from Carson allies and donors.
“Since he joined, some campaign insiders told Politico, Dean Parker’s operation has piled up unnecessary expenses and paid hefty consulting fees to an inexperienced staff. Parker recently began earning a $20,000 monthly salary, which veteran campaign operatives say is unusual for what is typically an unpaid, honorary role.”
LPNC is also apparently saying that any candidate that polls worse than NOTA won’t be included, even if they’re otherwise in the top 5. As of right now that would cut Feldman and leave Petersen, Johnson, Kerbel, and Perry.
To the extent that the North Carolina debate is about helping likely national convention delegates decide which candidate to support, McAfee obviously deserves an invitation.
To the extent that the North Carolina debate is about generating publicity for the party, McAfee also obviously deserves an invitation.
Nothing wrong with focusing on the primary as a publicity angle, of course, but it’s a beauty contest that doesn’t bind delegates.
A thousand apologies as always for my exceedingly poor English and being unclear. I only meant inclusion in the debate, not in the primary. As always, I will strive to improve the clarity of my communication in the future.
I do think they should include him in the debate, but there’s nothing they can do about getting him on the ballot.
Except they couldn’t have, because McAfee had not given any indication that he was going to run at the time. The first he mentioned it was when he announced nine days later. They had no way to know McAfee was going to want to be on the Libertarian ballot, whereas Johnson had been publicly talking about his intention to run since 2012.
The legal standard is also technically “discussed in the media,” which Johnson clearly met, and half the list didn’t.
And Gov. Johnson was not officially running at all at that time, so if they made a special allowance to include him they could and should have made one for Mr. McAfee as well.
In response to the same question, the LPNC facebook page just explained that the deadline for them to submit a list was December 15, and McAfee was still running “Cyber Party” at the time.
They are heavily tying it in to the NC primary, promoting it as “the only primary debate in NC”, etc. I agree with your point, but I get why they’re doing it that way. Trying to make the most of having a non-binding primary.
As for why McAfee isn’t on the ballot, I’m not sure when the deadline was for LPNC to submit their list, but it was announced just a few days after McAfee announced he was switching to the LP. I imagine they just weren’t aware he was running in time. Their list was simply the LNC list plus Johnson.
That makes more sense now. However, the debate would also be of interest to likely NC national convention delegates, who will presumably be interested in comparing Mr. McAfee with the other candidates seeking the party’s nomination even if he is not on their primary ballot. Of course, they can go to youtube, podcasts, facebook, IPR, etc., but the state convention will probably be their only opportunity to meet the candidates and compare them in person before the national convention, unless they travel to another state’s convention to do so, which very few if any of them will do.
McAfee is not included in the poll because his name will not be on the NC primary ballot.
I agree though, some shoddy clickbait-site Internet poll, that isn’t even labeled as having anything to do with a debate, is a ridiculously silly and unprofessional way to do this. Does not bode well for the debate itself being run better than amateur hour.
Agreed. It says this is version 6 of the poll so hopefully it will be amended again.
Yes, it’s a bad idea to condition debate invitations on performance in a non-scientific, easily stuffable* “poll.”
There are lots of better or worse criteria that could be used, and plenty of room to argue about the various ways of doing it, but there’s no doubt this scheme falls hard to the “worse” side.
* Yes, I did, with one extra vote, to establish that it was easily doable.
http://strawpoll.me/6514672
North Carolina LP has a non-scientific internet straw poll which will determine which candidates for the party’s presidential nomination will be invited to debate at their state convention. John McAfee is not included, so unless they amend the poll, if they stick with only inviting the top 5 from this poll he will be disqualified from the debate automatically. At this time Austin Petersen is in the lead, Gary Johnson is in second place, followed by Steve Kerbel and Darryl Perry as the only other candidates above NOTA. Marc Feldman is slightly behind NOTA but will not be invited unless he pulls ahead of NOTA, if I understand correctly. Several other candidates (Waymire, Reid, Robinson, Hale, Smith) are way below NOTA.
My interview with RT from last night is up on YouTube
https://youtu.be/bS2nrwf3Mnc
Oh Pfffft. (who can name the comic strip that comes from? Bonus points if you know the author)
I have had worse believe me. Politics is like that. I get nailed over on Daily Kos all the time. And they are supposed to be the “not mean” people. I cannot even repeat some of the things that have been said to me on the Free Republic. (aka freepers).
I have my personal beliefs. They come from being raised in a single mother household where my mother only had a high school education. My father never did graduate. He left when I was 4 (or should I say got kicked to the curb when I was 4).
Being the good catholic girl that I was (as far as Father and the nuns knew) I was going to be married for life. Apparently life is only 15 years. I have 2 children who I raised with my own beliefs, yet I exposed them to as many other people, culture, languages and belief systems as I could. I want what all parents want, to have their children have a better life. My son graduates this year with a pHd from Notre Dame (I have been told it is ok to brag about that, though I rarely brag). My daughter will be getting her masters in English and become a teacher. I would say that at least as a parent, I succeeded.
I became a Libertarian because I believe it is time for this country to “reboot”. We did the 2 parties, they failed miserably. The democrats became too conservative and the republicans are imploding. I must warn you all though. I play to win and if I put a dollar down on a horse, that horse better at least “show” if not “win”.
On my bucket list is to try running for office. So look for me during the midterms perhaps. I know some of you may vote for me.
Shivany Lane wrote:
Welcome to the LP!
Shivany Lane wrote:
I suspect attire will run the gambit from t-shirts through suits.
“Oh and I got my voter registration card today so now i am a card carrying registered Libertarian.”
Welcome to the party!
One purpose of the LP presidential campaign(s) is to bring in new members and activists. So I guess we can credit John McAfee with doing that at least once so far (the first such testimonial I’ve seen in this cycle). And he did it against the odds, considering what douchenozzles a bunch of us were to Shivany when she showed up here asking questions.
Me too Paulie, which is a scary thought because that woman has a mean vein running through her that is cold as ice.
Yes, well, I am unemployed and living on savings. I am hoping that Priceline or one of those sites comes through for me for the hotel room.
You will know me. I’m 5’2″, Bright Red hair, and i will be wearing my electric guitar case so i can fit my knitting in it. LOL
I stand out in my profession, Computer Programmer, because i am a girl. I have been gender discriminated against so many times i stopped counting. My real name is ambiguous. So they ask for me, I say this is she, they ask two questions and hang up. Or I show up for the interview and they look at the men in the waiting room as they call my name. Some of them are getting really food at not being fully shocked. The transition from shocked to poker face is now around 3 seconds.
I also am used to not being taken seriously. I also am used to being told that I take thngs too personally when if a man said exactly the same thing, they would agree with him. I have been asked if it is “that time”. bI had a manager once asked me if i planned on having babies soon because he didn’t want to train me just to have me leave to “go birthin babies”. The quotations we mine. He said it a little niced, dame meaning.
I had a VP of IT tell me that he would not have hired me because having a woman in the team is distracting. Oh and i drive a Prius and he is a staunch republican so that was a mark against me too.
I could write a book about the subtle discrimination. You know because I am not “one of the boys”. If I had a dollar for every time a man has told me that “one of the guys would not be offended by what I just said, you need to soldier up”, I would be a wealthy woman, with a Cabana Boy!!
I could see Nikki Haley beating both Trump and Hillary.
In response to:
The thing about party establishments is that they are PARTY establishments.
This year is like nothing I have ever seen in politics in my lifetime. The front runner to the Republican party giving stump speeches that don’t discuss issues just spread hate and poison. Talking about killing journalists and calling people losers.
I predict Trump’s floor show will get old. If it doesn’t by convention time, the party establishment are going to have to do something. It will be a brokered convention. Where are the Ron Paul delegates when we need them?
If Trump becomes the nominee, Republicans may just stay away from the polls rather than vote for anyone else. Bernie has quite a following but the democrat debates are a snoozefest. They agree on too many things. Since Stephen Colbert has his own show that he is doing well with, maybe Jon Stewart can jump in and save the day….nahhh only in a fan fiction book. I would not have voted for Hillary.
Oh and I got my voter registration card today so now i am a card carrying registered Libertarian.
Now to find gainful employment. Hopefully close enough to home that I don’t fall asleep during my commute
You won’t stand out because you have bright colors on, Shivany. You’ll stand out because you’re a girl. 🙂
I would like to go to that event, but I haven’t figured out a way to make it work yet. I’ll let you know if we can make it up there.
IIRC he participated in a few, and did not. Someone can look up the numbers if so inclined but I don’t feel like it.
Listening to Bowie….rocking out and thinking that yes my turquoise fringed boots will fit in just perfectly.
I find clothing to be costumes. You can tell my mood by what I am wearing. Except of course in the workplace.
I bought this purse. It was an over the shoulder purse that looks like an electric guitar. People came from all over the office to see my silly purse and how amazed they were that i would dare wear it to work.
If only they could see my closet they would faint. i go through periods, like a fine artist.
I own 5 Punjabi outfits. Sometimes, just to confuse the rigid executives, i will wear a bindi. I have glitter converse tennis shoes. Lots of Tie Dye. And one of my prized possessions, I have a T-shirt that has the beginning of the GNU license written on it. I also have a T-shirt that looks like a PC Board, front and back.
OK I am weird, though I don’t wear many accessories. When i get a grandaughter, then the Gossamer wings will come out.
There are a lot of people with power and money and “plausibly electable” backgrounds that don’t want to be in a party with government employee unions and the identity group politics of the left on one hand, and dixiecrats, Christian nationalists, tea party types and nativist xenophobes on the other. These people are not Libertarians or Greens or anything close to it; they could have been Americans Elect, but they were OK with Romney. Trump, maybe not so much. Cruz, we’ll see. So, I would say 35-40% is not overblown. If anything, probably underblown.
I see a very high chance of all sorts of other possibilities. But, yes, that is one of the ones that is plausible as well.
One of my LP activist friends from the San Fran area. We served on the national committee together and he has also served on the LPCA excomm, been chair and various other positions in LPSF, etc:
I have signed up for a Libertarian Activist 2 day event here in San Bruno California.
It will be at the Embassy suites.
Is there anyone else on this forum who will be going that I can meet up with? I like meeting people I talk to online, in person. I find that they do not think of me as such a cranky old lady that way.
Also, since I am a girl, and i love bright colors, will I stand out like a hippy at a Republican convention? Or should I just feel free to dress in what makes me feel happy and be the real me?
These are questions asked in Earnest. Believe it or not, I have never met a Libertarian, or at least one who told me they were. And i talk politics often.
re: Does the GOP establishment run an independent Republican against Trump?
I think the balance of considerations leans towards ?no,? but that?s not necessarily obvious, or the decision they?ll reach. I?d rate it a 60-65% chance they don?t and a 35-40% chance they do.
I think that’s probably in the right neighborhood. See my comment here: https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2016/01/video-gary-johnson-on-the-alan-colmes-show/#comment-1295862
As for Knapp’s point about the GOP establishment not wanting to “abandon” the party they have worked so hard to build, I think if they go that route and lose, they might be able to salvage their control over the GOP by engaging in some revisionist history, by saying something like, “Well, we didn’t abandon the GOP. That evil Trump took it from us, and now we’ve got to unite, and take it back, so we can make sure Hillary doesn’t get reelected in 2020.”
I too have the same problem as Chuck and NF. It really sucks, as I have a long email address!
Same problem as Chuck. I thought is was a conspiracy!
Oops.
http://gawker.com/angry-militia-leader-stop-mailing-us-dildos-1752580458
The horror. First it’s Ammon Bundy fanfic porn, now it’s harassment with sex toys through the postal mail!
http://gawker.com/angry-militia-leader-stop-mailing-us-dildos
I’ve never noticed it pre-filled before, unless you already happened to be logged in to either IPR itself or WordPress.com. Otherwise, it was always empty.
Since IPR started the comment field filled in the prior used Name, Email, and Website. I’ve found that information is no longer pre- filled in as of yesterday.
Is anyone else encountering that problem?
I agree with Jed. It is inevitable.
I don’t see any chance of this election being anything less than a landslide win for Hillary Clinton.
“My perception of his goals is that he’d like to be appointed to a federal judiciary seat.”
I don’t see how running as the LP nominee serves that goal, except insofar as it was a possible stepping stone to getting back into office as a Republican, from which he might then be appointed to a judgeship. But you may be right that’s what Cruz offered him, and/or that it’s a desire of his. He took a lot of pride of being, in effect, one of the prosecutors on behalf of the House in Clinton’s Senate trial.
I was surprised that Barr went for another congressional run. My perception of his goals is that he’d like to be appointed to a federal judiciary seat. And if by some bizarre chance Cruz is the nominee, and wins the general election, he might very well get his wish.
He wanted very badly to run because he wanted very badly to build up enough of a base to get himself back into Congress as a Republican. It worked for Ron Paul, after all.
As it turns out, it didn’t work for Bob Barr. He didn’t make it past the GOP primary in 2014 for U.S. House.
“I don’t think Barr was “persuaded” to run. I think he wanted very badly to run…” – Thomas L. Knapp
And he did! Very badly indeed!
My perception was that the biggest single LP presidential announcement ever was Johnson 2012. Second place, probably Barr in 2008. I’m just not seeing nearly as much coverage of Johnson 2016 as for either of those. And McAfee seems to be trailing Johnson just a little bit in media notice. But not much … and he seems to be getting started actually doing stuff. So I guess we’ll see how they play out against each other on that front.
Like you say, number of stories and loudness, quality, etc. of stories are two different things. Single data point: This year CNN.com gave Johnson’s announcement about 200 words. In 2012, he got about 260 words.
More anecdotally, in 2012, Rachel Maddow talked about, maybe even TO, him, around the time he declared. I don’t remember the details, but I do remember it being non-trivial, at least a couple of minutes. Haven’t heard her mention him yet this year.
It’s a pretty subjective judgement, because it matters not just how many stories there are, but how big an audience they reach and how “mainstream” the media source is. Johnson got a flood of MSM coverage from his announcement, pretty much any news source you could care to name covered it.
But there really aren’t that many contenders for the title. If you don’t limit it to LP campaigns, maybe Ron Paul 2012 (his 2008 announcement was mostly a non-event). If you do limit to LP campaigns, the only possibilities for an announcement that got more coverage, are Johnson 2012, and McAfee 2016. I’m quite comfortable asserting Johnson got more coverage this time than in 2012 (either his initial announcement or the party-switching announcement), and more than McAfee’s announcement did.
I’d have to go back and look at how much coverage Gravel and Barr got with their 2008 announcements, but I don’t think there is much of a case for it being more than either Johnson 2016 or 2012.
Who else could it plausibly be?
George,
I don’t think Barr was “persuaded” to run. I think he wanted very badly to run, but did put things off to the last minute 1) because he correctly thought that he could get away with doing so and 2) because there were other things he wanted to do for as long as possible, e.g. speaking at the NRA conference, that he wouldn’t have been able to do as a declared candidate.
It might be that the LSLA debate was a tipping point in telling him “yeah, I can take this thing,” but my belief is that he was considering it for quite some time before doing it and that any “persuasion” required was window dressing.
Regarding the media coverage of Johnson:
I just ran a Google News search for “Libertarian Party,” sorted by date, and looked at the first 20 results.
Six of them are about, or mention, Gary Johson.
Four of them are about, or mention, John McAfee.
Johnson edges out McAfee in terms of the number of stories FOC– USED on him (five versus two — two of the McAfee stories are about the Nevada event and focus on Hof; one of the stories that mentions Johnson is a list of candidates on the North Carolina LP presidential primary, in which McAfee is not included).
But I’m just not seeing any real manifestation of this “most coverage EVAH” claim for Johnson.
Tom,
The fellow who gave the speech was, so far as I can recall an LNC member, though I do not rmember which one, and it was not a nominating speech.
The morons who brought us Barr were the folks who went to the LSLA debate, decided that they could get someone better, and persuaded Barr to run.
I’d say 35%-40% is overblown by a factor of at least 10, and more like 300.
The thing about party establishments is that they are PARTY establishments. When their guy loses in the primary, they sulk. And they’d rather lose an election than HAVE their guy lose in the primary. They consider long-term control of their organization far more important than that organization’s prospects in one election.
Remember that even if Trump is the GOP nominee, and even if he wins, the “party establishment” has effective control of a majority of state governorships, state legislatures and Republican congressional seats. Why would they go skylarking off behind an independent movement for the presidency? Whether it succeeded or failed, it would be inherently subversive of the stuff they actually CARE about.
re: Does the GOP establishment run an independent Republican against Trump?
I think the balance of considerations leans towards “no,” but that’s not necessarily obvious, or the decision they’ll reach. I’d rate it a 60-65% chance they don’t and a 35-40% chance they do.
@13:41
Barr has done more than endorse Cruz. We covered it here at IPR.
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2015/09/ted-cruz-names-bob-barr-head-of-outreach-effort-to-ron-paul-supporters-and-libertarians/
“Would all you morons who brought us Barr do the Libertarian Party the favor of shutting up this election cycle? That starts with the twit who anticipated Barr bringing in tens of millions of dollars for barr-Root, and said so in his speech time at that National.”
I’m pretty sure that was Barr’s campaign manager, Russ Verney. I doubt he’s still active in the LP.
Barr endorses Cruz
http://politics.blog.ajc.com/2016/01/12/greene-county-considers-installing-sheriff-as-school-superintendent/
It’s down at the bottom.
Would all you morons who brought us Barr do the Libertarian Party the favor of shutting up this election cycle? That starts with the twit who anticipated Barr bringing in tens of millions of dollars for barr-Root, and said so in his speech time at that National.
In an earlier comment someone suggested that in 1980 Anderson had not made much of an impression in the Republican primaries.
My girlfriend at the time and I went to the local Republican caucus in our neighborhood in Seattle and very much to our surprise the house was full of other young people. Of course the Precinct Captain was giddy believing that we were all there because of the Reagan revo, but very wuickly the Anderson supporters took over the meeting and took all the delegates from the caucus. And even in March (Febrauary?) we already were looking forward to Anderson running as an independent. And if I remember correctly part of the idea of flooding the GOP caucuses was to show Anderson that he had support to go independent.
Later in the year Anderson’s campaign seemed to stall out. I always wondered if the Democrats threatetened him in someway? And even after he got over 5% nationally, and could have created a new political party (I think he did initiate some sort of National Unity Party?) all that third party talk was quickly quashed by the Democrats. Just like with Nader in 2000 the liberals who had supported Anderson all started saying he had ruined it for Carter and that Reagan was so dangerous that if Anderson did set up some sort of progressive third party for 84 he would be aiding and abetting the Reagan revo. So Anderson quickly folded his tent.
I think Trump has a similar mass appeal. Not so much to the young adults like Anderson, but I do think Trump’s supporters would support him if he ran as an independent.
Yes, if that was the campaign he chose to run, he could be, but he chose to run a very different type of campaign. I can see him pivoting to a different kind of positioning in a 3 way general election campaign, but I don’t think that is the direction he will pivot in. I think he will pivot to emphasize his economic protectionism and support for middle class entitlements (including opposition to any cuts) and support for nationalized medical insurance if not a full blown nationalized medical system. However, I do think he’ll continue to tout migrant bashing nativism and socially reactionary position on cultural issues regardless of whether he actually holds those views.
They also have a disagreement on alliances and enemies abroad. The aforementioned elements are itching for conflict with Syria, Iran and Russia, and not so much with Latin America, China, Japan, Europe, or most of the rest of the Muslim world, whereas Trump is more the other way around.
I think he has a decent chance of winning big parts of the votes that would otherwise go to both the Democrats as well as the Republicans with that coalition, as well as those who would otherwise not vote.
“As a matter of fact, a lot of the country club establishment big business/ military-industrial-espionage state but not very socially conservative types floated bolting in 2012 with Americans Elect. They didn’t end up doing it because Romney is essentially one of their own and none of them wanted to go up against him and be branded as a spoiler, regardless of whether they thought he actually had a chance. If Trump gets the nomination I think there is a high likelihood they will bolt;”
That’s rather peculiar, because Trump is one of those rich socially tolerant businessmen around which the establishment might coalesce if it weren’t so attached to driving down the price of labor.
Yep.
Well, Paulie, we obviously have some fundamental disagreements on where this election cycle is likely to go, and why.
I guess we’ll know which of us — if either — was right by some time in early November, if not earlier.
Disagreed.
Why the fuck not? A lot of them have been sick and tired of the far reich wing Tea Party/Dixiecrat/Christofascist/Nativist-xenophobic-racist element in the Republican coalition for quite some time now and may be finally ready to dump the party overboard completely if that element propels Trump to the nomination.
As a matter of fact, a lot of the country club establishment big business/ military-industrial-espionage state but not very socially conservative types floated bolting in 2012 with Americans Elect. They didn’t end up doing it because Romney is essentially one of their own and none of them wanted to go up against him and be branded as a spoiler, regardless of whether they thought he actually had a chance. If Trump gets the nomination I think there is a high likelihood they will bolt; maybe back Jim Webb or maybe someone else. Maybe Romney, maybe Bloomberg himself, or maybe one of many other players on their bench.
I think he probably does, and even if he doesn’t, he has the name recognition to raise it from others.
If the up til now Republican establishment sees him as the lesser of three evils that will change. Few people knew who he was or paid any attention to him when he ran against Hillary and Bernie, and he wasn’t progressive enough for the Democrats. I don’t think John Anderson got much traction in the Republican primaries in 1980, either. But I think he can have more potential than Anderson did in the general if the people I am talking about get behind him. If they don’t, there are lots of other people they can get behind.
“If your wild ass guessed is scientific, what is your exact reproducible methodology?”
Feel free to look up the term SWAG. It doesn’t entail an exact reproducible methodology. I used Google searches on the terms “Gary Johnson” with “Libertarian” included for the dates of the two announcements and the following three days, then did some scanning of IPR reports, campaign claims regarding the first announcement, etc. to figure out whether or not the currently listed Google results for that date range suffered from substantial link rot, etc. And then, based on all those things, I made my wild-ass guess.
“No, you are still talking about Democrats and Republicans as being the only two seen as having a chance to win again. ”
Yep. Because that’s almost certainly how it’s going to be.
No, the Republican establishment is not going to run an independent if Trump wins the nomination. They may pull their heads in their turtle shells and hope for better luck four years from now instead of actively supporting their party’s nominee, but they’re not going to run against their own party’s nominee.
If Trump is not the nominee, I doubt very much that he will try an independent run. So far his spending has been fairly small beans, and it’s very unlikely that he has the liquidity to self-finance a competitive third-party campaign even if he wants to.
I thought the Democrats were idiots when Webb didn’t show substantial support in the Democratic race. But he DIDN’T show such support. Not from partisan Democrats and not from independents. If he runs an independent campaign, he’ll almost certainly do less well than, say, Jill Stein does if Sanders is not the nominee.
I would put the odds of a competitive independent candidacy coming out of one of the two major parties at somewhere in the range of 300 to 1 against.
But I could be wrong.
If your wild ass guessed is scientific, what is your exact reproducible methodology?
TLK @ 10:34
No, you are still talking about Democrats and Republicans as being the only two seen as having a chance to win again.
I am talking about Trump either getting the R nomination and the Republican establishment backing a well known and well financed independent who polls competitively and makes the general election debates, or Trump still leading in the polls but losing the multistage delegate quest process and financing an independent run where he also polls competitively and makes the general election debates.
For reference, see Perot’s poll numbers before he first dropped out in 1992. He was ahead of both Clinton and Bush and had that dynamic held there is no reason he would have been seen as a “spoiler” as the election grew closer. Or take Ventura for Governor; he went from 7% in September to being seen as more and more plausible as the election got closer and finally beating both the Democrats and Republicans in a close 3 way race where he did better than even the final polls, which themselves were significantly stronger than polls taken not much earlier. It hasn’t happened yet in a presidential race, but it could, especially if we manage to break the highly corrupt debate logjam.
Paulie,
I saw the email you’re referring to.
If the campaign “measures these things” it has a funny way of showing it, since the email basically says “I think this may have been the biggest thing ever” with no associated numbers either for it or for any previous similar event.
My scientific wild-ass guess, based on some Googling of date ranges, is that Johnson’s announcement this time MAY have received as much as 10% of the coverage that his 2012 announcement got. MAYBE. That’s IF the “what the fuck is the thing about the burqas” coverage is included.
Incorrect. The campaign actually measures these things, and 2016 was bigger. I forwarded the email about that to the IPR list. Might post it as an article if I get around to it and no one else does first.
“This dynamic will not necessarily be in play again.”
True. It won’t necessarily be in play again. In fact, I just invested $5 in PredictIt shares for Joe Biden to be the Democratic nominee, and another $5 for him to win the general election … and if he is the nominee, I expect the general to look a lot more like 2012, with Biden known in advance to easily win.
But I’m just going with the odds here. I invested that $10 because I think Biden’s chances of being the nominee are better than 20 to 1 (I paid 5 cents per share for 100 shares, each share liquidating at $1 if I am correct — so a $95 profit on a $5 investment), and that his chances of winning the general election are better than 50 to 1 (I paid 2 cents per share for 250 shares, so a $245 profit on a $5 investment if I “win”).
And personally I think Bush may still very well be the GOP nominee. It’s not getting a lot of notice, but one poll last week showed him in second place in New Hampshire.
But IF things play out as they now look set to, it will be Trump or Cruz versus Clinton or Sanders. And that would produce a tighter perception and more effective “wasted vote” concern-trolling.
That’s roughly 300% of what the LP got in every presidential election from 1984 to 2008, more than the rest of the alt party and independent candidates prez put together in 2012 by a long shot, more than any alt party or independent prez candidate since 2000, and aside from that the best result for an alt party or independent prez candidate of any kind who was not a billionaire and/or included in the general election presidential debates since 1980. I would also include that Nader had much more name recognition and media coverage for decades before 2000….as did Pat Buchanan, who did not do nearly as well.
As for “a year when everybody knew the eventual outcome and potential protest votes were in abundance” try 1984 or 1996 for comparison.
Most likely because the media keeps blurring the distinction between libertarians and christofascists, as, admittedly, do some libertarians.
What difference does it make? His campaign is burned toast, but with less flavor.
There are lots of examples of candidates from all kinds of parties big and small that did better the second time than the first, just as there are plenty of examples of ones that did worse.
That dynamic will not necessarily be in play again. Yes, I know it has always been in play til now, but I think there’s a decent chance that e.g. Webb, Romney as an independent, Trump as an independent, Bloomberg, Bloomberg vehicle candidate, etc will make it a 3-way race with an entirely different dynamic.
I don’t think that it will be the existing alt parties to break through the ceiling, but it’s not completely impossible. Johnson and/or Stein could benefit from superpac spending or a wealthy running mate, winning the debate lawsuits, and/or some other game changer. I don’t think it’s at all likely, but it’s more likely than any time in the past, maybe by an order of magnitude or two. Campaign finances and communications are changing very quickly and the dam is breaking.
Few of them have that lick of sense.
LOL.
That’s possible. Or he could do significantly better this time, or about the same. I see any of those as having a decent chance of happening. It will depend on a lot of things we can’t know yet or any time soon.
Darcy,
Some Libertarians, yes. But my perception is that the response to Johnson’s announcement among Libertarians so far is running a very high ration of “meh — whatever” versus “omigodomigodomigodhe’srunningagainomigod!”
That’s not to say that anyone else is catching fire, of course. But McAfee seems to have generated roughly as much buzz just by appearing at a state LP event and ranting from the floor of CES as Johnson did with his BIG SHEW (for which the main attention he got was over stomping on his own crank vis a vis burqas), and the “undercard” candidates seem to be out there actually working the party circuit.
I suppose it’s possible that Johnson might manage the nomination again, but it certainly doesn’t look like a done deal).
William,
Paul probably calculated, and probably correctly so, that he’ll get more media attention for boycotting the “undercard” debate than he would get from participating in it.
It’s almost defies rationality the way some Libertarians continue to believe that Gary Johnson is some sort of prolific vote-getter when, in reality, he didn’t even break the one percent-mark in 2012 — a year when everybody knew the eventual outcome and potential protest votes were in abundance.
Rand Paul is making a mistake by “boycotting” the early debate on Thursday. I don’t understand why he won’t take advantage of the free media. Pride?
I realize the goofballs occupying the building in Oregon are not actual LP members. But their “anti-government” attitude reads as libertarian to the media reading masses.
It’s similar to how anything the “black bloc” window breakers do is used to smear the Left generally.
I’m glad they’ve been relegated to bad memes and fanfic porn (ewww).
And as far as the feds using violence against them. I don’t see it. If you look back over the history of the US state violence has been predominantly used against the Left and union members, not the Right.
“We need P.T. Barnum, a little bit, because we have to build up the image of our country. We have to be a cheerleader for our country,” he said. “We don’t have a cheerleader.” – Donald Trump
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/donald-trump-ronald-reagan-217545#ixzz3wsxxZAGA
“Cultivating hope from fear: How to get more right.” A 13 minute talk with a guitar accompaniment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mmTfNnwNoY
Andy,
Nader’s first campaign was ostensibly run for under $5k and was 110% pure gadfly stuff. Nader’s second campaign was a serious effort.
“The announcement this year has already made a bigger splash and got more MSM coverage than did probably anything during the 2012 campaign.”
In your imagination, perhaps. In the real world, this year’s announcement probably didn’t even reach the same order of magnitude of media attention as the 2012 announcement.
Obviously we differ on the likelihood of McAfee vs. Johnson being the nominee. Based on recent past delegate predispositions, I do admit that you may have a point. Over the last couple of election cycles the LP has been sort of the self-mutilating teenager of politics.
“the up side for the LP if it made the mistake of going with Johnson again would be well below a million votes”
If he sees the same increase from his first to his second campaign as did Ralph Nader, it would be closer to 3.9%. which would be around 5 million votes. I’m not saying that will necessarily happen, but second-time candidates do not, as a rule or even a trend, get fewer votes the second go-around. The announcement this year has already made a bigger splash and got more MSM coverage than did probably anything during the 2012 campaign.
I think that if Johnson is the nominee, and assuming no major breakout nor debate inclusion, he will at least match the 2012 results, which would still be way above-average for an LP nominee. I think if a snap election were held tomorrow, he’d easily match and probably comfortably exceed the 2012 result.
” the more likely nominee, McAfee”
That’s a pretty ridiculous assertion.
“can probably easily exceed Johnson’s 2012 total,”
But not quite as ridiculous as that one.
“Assuming that the Democrats go with Clinton, Stein can probably hit or exceed Johnson’s 2012 total as well.”
Maybe, but definitely not ‘probably,’ and still almost certainly less than the LP nominee, whoever that is.
The flip side of the “wasted vote” worry is the “THIS time, the choices are so horrible that voters will HAVE to flock to third party candidates” delusion.
Let’s assume, for a moment, that the GOP is going to nominate Trump or Cruz (I’d say there’s a 99.9% chance it won’t be Trump and a better than even chance it won’t be Cruz, but many people think otherwise).
And let’s assume, for a moment, that the Democrats are going to nominated Clinton or Sanders (almost certainly Clinton, IMO).
In that case, both parties are going to have really sucky nominees.
And the usual voters of both parties are almost certainly going to be MORE, not LESS, likely to vote for their usual party.
Why? Because people who usually vote Republican are going to be more scared of Clinton/Sanders than they are disdainful of Trump/Cruz. And people who usually vote Democrat are going to be more scared of Trump/Cruz than they are disdainful of Clinton/Sanders.
One thing the LP had going for it in 2012 was that everyone with a lick of sense knew well in advance that Obama was going to easily win re-election. That meant that “progressives” who were unhappy with Obama, and “conservatives” who didn’t like Romney, could vote third party without worrying that their votes might cause something to happen that wasn’t going to happen anyway.
I expect that this year, the race will be heavily portrayed as “tight,” whether it really is or not. I’m guessing that the up side for the LP if it made the mistake of going with Johnson again would be well below a million votes; the more likely nominee, McAfee, can probably easily exceed Johnson’s 2012 total, but I don’t see any kind of major breakout (more than 5 million) happening. Assuming that the Democrats go with Clinton, Stein can probably hit or exceed Johnson’s 2012 total as well.
@23:22 Apparently they have someone who has concluded that blowing up figuratively speaking an enemy political party is advantageous. An election in which many voters can;t stand etiher duopoly candidate is advantageous for third parties.
Shouldn’t he be focused on promoting his own party’s candidate?
American Freedom Party chairman is paying for pro-Trump radio ads:
http://amthirdpartyreport.com/2016/01/09/white-nationalist-pays-for-radio-airtime-and-robocalls-to-promote-donald-trump/
http://m.peninsulaclarion.com/news/2016-01-06/miller-says-hes-not-seriously-considering-senate-run#gsc.tab=0
Joe is welcome to run for U.S.Senate as an ACP member.
By the way, I had an extremely positive conversation with CA AIP Chairman Seidenberg this morning. He is an absolute gem in regards to Alaska history. I love to hear him recite our real history. I hope he writes a book, or at least an article about the still disputed boundaries of Alaska, and how our federal government has betrayed our people by ceding critical Arctic lands to the Russians. The Russians, who should have been our natural allies, who (Thanks to Obama/Clinton) now seriously imperil our sovereign territory and people by aggressively projecting their military forces against us. As President, I will defend our Arctic territory with absolute fervor!
P.S. Chairman Seidenberg has assured me that I will be on the CA AIP POTUS ballot in June.
There is a definite LP bias here. I am occasionally surprised by coverage of other parties. Though I agree with the contributors, let the CP and other parties take a bigger interest in promoting our party in all arenas. It mystifies me why the CP hasn’t been able to generate more press releases, blog contributions, comments, blah, blah, blah. As they say, Sh-t or get off the pot!
Also, Paul Rand, if you see something you’d like to see posted here, you can send it to me at [email protected] or to one of the other writers who have published their contact info. If I’m too busy, I can send it along to the IPR writers email list.
I’ll try to post more non-Libertarian articles this year. My extremely busy schedule should ease up a bit, and I’ll try to do more during this important election.
Of course, being paid would give me an incentive to do even more…
😀
Good stuff covered here, I mean.
Good covered here:
http://tomwoods.com/podcast/ep-566-why-are-some-libertarians-rejecting-the-nonaggression-principle/
Fuckin fuggedaboutit.
lol
Here’s a hint on how people who would like to see more of what’s not already on IPR be posted here if they don’t want to sign up to do it themselves:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XGAmPRxV48
We’re volunteers. I only post on LP stuff. While I read the other independent party stuff, my time is limited, I am not paid, so I will post on what I find interesting or newsworthy. My standard is whether it relates to the LP and would it be something of news (even if minor news) to other Libertarians.
The Oklahoma phone call was very newsworthy to LP people. While I can understand why someone outside the Party might not understand that, it is. Particularly when the IPR editor (me) attended the meeting and could provide a summary before it was officially available.
Other people with an equal passion for their Party (GP, CP, other) should sign up to post. I would gladly read their posts.
Well, I see paulie already hit all the same points. :p
Each writer more-or-less makes their own call on that. Only hard and fast rule is it needs some connection to third-parties or independents. Sometimes it comes up after the fact on our email list if a certain post is appropriate, but mainly that happens when the contributor asks for feedback. There is no editorial review process or anything like that, though. Anybody who’s been approved and added (and many more have been than regularly post) can punch a post in WordPress and hit “publish.”
I agree, some of the posts aren’t always terribly “newsworthy”. But this isn’t CNN or the New York Times. It’s a volunteer blog.
Wrong.
They can post about whatever they want to post about as long as it had some connection to alt parties or independent candidates. If the connection is not immediately obvious it should be spelled out in the article.
Not everything posted to IPR is news. Some is news, some is discussion fodder, some is just what some IPR writer happens to find to be interesting.
Again, it’s up to what each writer considers interesting to post about, not necessarily what they consider to be bigger news. There’s no news desk assigning stories, writers here are not paid, and there is no pre-discussion of who posts what when unless a writer/editor has a question about it that they decide to ask on our email list or a request of the other IPR writer/editors.
Otherwise it’s a free for all.
If you don’t like what they are not choosing to post stories on you can ask to be added as a writer here.
I guess part of what I’m saying is I don’t get why you consider some of the LP stuff you do carry to be news, like the lily tang gun photo. You don’t just let writers post anything and everything, right?? I can’t see how that or the post about some oklahoma call could seriously be considered bigger news than Webb setting up a staff.
Saw that and discussed it in the Nevada post. See comments there. Doesn’t sound very plausible but I may post it anyway if I get around to it. We’ll see who the mystery announcement is for Nevada.
To the editors,
Not sure about this, but THIS is an interesting development:
http://www.punkrocklibertarians.com/john-mcafee-morgan-freeman-considering-pres-bid-libertarian-party/
I’ll post about what I have time and interest to post about. Often the factor is time. I can, have and will sign up other people to post stories here as well.
That was an independent. I think the reference may have been to Petersen hiring Rachel Mills, but then I don’t remember her title with the Petersen campaign. In any case yes that can be story.
It’s no secret that most of the writers here are Libertarians and we tend to focus on the LP. I have no problem admitting I don’t follow other parties as closely, and said when I signed up to contribute that I would mainly post about the LP (though that I would, and have, posted about other-parties and independents too).
I don’t recall us ever posting about a potential candidate hiring a finance director. I did post about him hiring a ballot access coordinator, and for the same reason you note: it indicates a run is likely. If any particular story isn’t posted, it might be because one of us saw and didn’t think it post-worthy, but more likely it’s just because none of us have seen it at all.
But if you want to see more about other parties, you can sign up to post more about other parties. We welcome Greens and Constitution Party and other-party contributors. We’ve had them before, they just seem to not hang around very long, and maybe that’s because of the commenters being mostly Libertarian, but it’s not like this place is overflowing with good feelings and kind words among Libertarians, either.
You have a story that’s a photo of a state LP person taken from her Facebook page. You have one ipr writer writing about what another ipr writer posted on facebook. You have stories that are announcements of upcoming LP committee conference calls. There’s nothing like that level of detail about other parties. Is there anyone other than Jed who is even looking?? Jim Webb hired a finance director the other day, which means it’s really likely he will run as an indie and ipr did not cover it. If this is Liberyarian Party Watch now just say so
Is there any particular CP or GP story you think isn’t being covered?
It is hardly our fault that there has been a lot more LP-related news the past few days. We report on the GP and CP and other third-party and independent campaigns, when there’s something to report on.
Wow… when did this become Libertarian Political Report?? I remember there used to be a lot of coverage of CP and GP here — now the first 15 stories are all LP and most after that. And a lot of stories about the writers themselves!! And facebook photos of party officials?? hmm. It seems like Jed is the only person who is even trying to cover other parties.
OK Petition Drive needs more moola.
Having gone through $85,000 of the estimated $65,000, it appears that another $20,000 is needed and will be discussed tonight be the ExComm.
Reposted-
http://amthirdpartyreport.com/2016/01/06/former-iap-national-chairman-kelly-gneiting-talks-about-leaving-the-lds-church-and-joining-breakaway-sect/
John McAfee officially changed his FEC filing to LIBERTARIAN
http://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/fecimg?_201601059004433614+0
And it looks like Kelly Gneiting has indeed gone off the deep end-
http://theremnantofjoseph.org/2015/10/escaping-the-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints-in-search-of-the-church-of-the-firstborn/
I’m not surprised this has happened to the National IAP-
http://amthirdpartyreport.com/2016/01/05/small-utah-born-political-party-has-rift-over-oregon-occupation-mormon-church-stance/
Those who insist on perpetuating the Left/Right divide and conquer mentality are merely supporting the status quo.
Matt Cholko wrote:
He is.
Matt Cholko wrote:
I have. You should.
Observation: If his IPR comments are any indication, George Whitfield has a very positive attitude. He always has nice stuff to say, and seems to completely avoid bitching, whining, name calling, or otherwise engaging in the negative speech that is all too common in forums like this one. .
Seems like a good dude. One that I’d like to have a drink or meal with at some point.
If Mark Axinn is still on the board, Or any NY People,
Is there a link to Petitioning info?
It’s currently an excel file on my PC, which has no internet access. I’ll email you what I have so far later though.
If you show me the format you are using I may be able to plug some things in.
I’m working on putting together a ballot access scorecard for the 2016 presidential election. If anyone has any information on minor parties and independents qualifying for the ballot beyond what has been reported at BAN or IPR, please let me know.
langa…should know better than to put “the left” all in one basket.
When I talk about “the left” (or “the right”), I’m talking about the statist component, not those libertarians who insist on trying to conflate the two. Put simply, I don’t buy into the notion that there are “left libertarians” (or “right libertarians”). Someone can be a leftist on some issues and a libertarian on other issues, but for any given issue, there is a libertarian position (yes, just one, although on a few issues, reasonable libertarians can debate what that position is). Thus, on any particular issue, you either take the libertarian position, or you take some other position. On government power, the libertarian position is that it’s bad. The leftist position is that it’s good, as long as it’s used for “progressive” purposes. These positions are mutually exclusive. So, to the extent that you are a leftist, you can’t really be inherently opposed to government power. If you were, you wouldn’t really be a leftist. You would be a libertarian.
Shivany,
I am always glad to see anyone becoming a libertarian, no matter whether they came from the Left or the Right.
As far as painting with a broad brush, I have seen enough fake libertarian rhetoric coming out of those on the Left (and the Right) to make me pretty cynical. For example, back in the Bush years, there were tons and tons of leftists who claimed to be strongly antiwar. Then suddenly, after Obama was elected, trying to find antiwar leftists was like finding a needle in a haystack, even though on foreign policy (and most other things) Obama was basically a carbon copy of Bush. Yet the Left was no longer staging big antiwar demonstrations, because they were never really against the wars, as much as they were against the guy fighting the wars.
By the way, just so there’s no misunderstanding, I’m not putting you in that “fake libertarian” category. You seem to be genuinely interested in libertarian ideas, and hopefully, the more you learn about them, the more you will embrace them. But there are definitely plenty of people on both sides (left and right) who won’t hesitate to hijack libertarian rhetoric if they think doing so serves their agenda.
It’s not a left/right, liberal/conservative, D/R false dichotomy. That mindset keeps the sheeple in their pens. We don’t need yo perpetuate a Divide and Conquer version 2.0.16.
No, it’s about Liberty versus Tyranny in its many permutations. It’s about upholding our social contract, the Constitution, which enumerates our pre-existing rights by limiting government power. It’s about the Rule of Law irrespective of social status, wealth, position or privilege. My campaign is based upon this understanding.
Jill, yes, I did say I wrote it further above, just not at the same comment. It’s already been posted to IPR and A3PR in the past and I threw out the link earlier, but there were a lot of people bombarding Shivany with a lot of links and book suggestions all at once so I decided to post the whole thing instead of just the link, with apologies to everyone else since I usually ask people not to do that here.
Paulie, if you said who wrote the above essay, I missed it. Is it yours?
I’m not wealthy. It’s a job and pays.
I guess it’s relative though, since you would have to come up with enough money to get here and live on for a few days until you get your first pay… so that may be rich to you …. but I actually have been rich, and I’m definitely not rich now. On the other hand I know what non-US poverty is so I would not call myself poor either. At the risk of sounding too much like a Marxist… more “working class.” Or for those familiar with the term or concept I am part of the class of people who live long term in lower end motels bouncing around, sometimes known as “motel trash.”
I think he does too. My initial response to Deran was only on the point that they are by implication Libertarians, which is not the case.
Shivany … I know you got bombarded with about a million links, including a whole bunch of books to read.. so you probably haven’t had a chance to read this yet. I posted the link above but I’ll post the whole thing here now. With apologies to the other IPR readers, since I generally discourage people reposting whole essays as comments when they can just post a link. But in this case I will.
Back in the Reagan and Bush Sr. years (1980 to 1992), I believed that when the baby boomer progressives got to the top of the power pyramid, they would bring US troops home from around the world, end the drug war and the militarized police-surveillance-prison industrial complex at home, and stop the interlocking partnership of politicians, bureaucrats and big corporations.
Although the cold war ended, and the Democrats won control of the White House and (for a couple of years) both houses of Congress, the drug war only intensified. More people were arrested and imprisoned for drugs under Clinton than under Reagan or Bush Sr. Corporate-government collusion just kept growing. Iraq kept being bombed and embargoed to the point that hundreds of thousands of people, perhaps a million, (about half of them children) died from the effects. Madeleine Albright said it was “worth it.” A pharmaceutical factory in Sudan was bombed by Americans. The military-industrial complex was certainly not curtailed.
Given these facts I could no longer in good conscience support the Democratic Party. I needed an alternative that supported ending the drug war, bringing home the troops, winding down the military-industrial complex, demilitarizing the domestic police forces, and at that time the only such choice on my ballot was the Libertarians.
While I was ready to vote for them, I was not one yet and wanted to know more about them. At the time, as a new party inquiry I received “Libertarianism In One Lesson” by David Bergland and afterwards read through the books in the “for further reading…” section at the end.
To my relief, Libertarians also turned out to be genuinely against government-corporate collusion as well as against the whole poisonous big government agenda of the “moral majority”/”Christian Coalition” social conservatives on sexual issues, freedom of expression, separation of religion and government, etc.
I discovered that there were libertarian perspectives on a variety of progressive goals – Julian Simon’s books and articles about environmental issues were a big help.
I read that, far from educating poor children better, government schools were actually consciously promoted as means of socializing children into cannon fodder for the war machine and obedient workers for big corporations. This certainly made sense when compared with my actual experiences in schools.
I read about ways in which, far from helping poor people, government poverty programs actually trapped poor people in poverty, while a slew of taxes and regulations prevented poor and blue collar “working class” people from starting small businesses . . . while empowering big corporations that are actually advantaged against small business competition due to their ability to mobilize teams of lawyers, lobbyists and accountants.
I learned that government is itself the biggest polluter – the exact extent not being fully known due to military secrecy. I learned that in many cases government subsidizes pollution and/or insures/exempts polluters from legal consequences.
I learned that libertarians did in fact offer answers to the problems that progressives want to use big government to solve, and through a process of reading and debate over a couple of years in the early 1990s those solutions began to make more and more sense to me.
I realized that many of the same arguments that I was making as a drug peace activist – that something being bad did not mean it should be illegal, and that making it illegal often caused more problems than the original problem and/or made it worse – applied across the board, including to economic issues, educational issues, environmental issues, etc. The corollary that just because something was good did not mean it should be made mandatory also eventually made sense.
I always had a natural strong dislike for authoritarianism, bureaucracy, government offices with their waiting lines and forms . . . yet for some years believed that they were necessary to protect the environment, educate children, insure fairness for employees and consumers, help the poor, sick and disabled, etc. However, due to the reading I did, I came to believe that, in fact, big government is actually actively detrimental to all these progressive goals.
I no longer believe that the same entity which locks people who have not victimized anyone up in prisons and sends people to fight in imperialist wars overseas, bails out banks and big corporations, and so on, is the entity we should turn to achieve any such worthy goals. Nowadays it seems to me that it amounts to putting the fox in charge of the chicken coop.
Nor do I believe any longer that it is the only way to keep big business from abusing people; I now tend to see big government and big business as intertwined entities that work in tandem against the common people, rather than balancing each other out as I once believed they did.
I believe now that the “right people” will never fix the problems of our existing government, unless they are strong enough to voluntarily give up power, which rarely happens. I’ve learned that the incentive system that exists under any form of coercive monopoly always leads to the abuse of power.
Today we can see another Democratic president once again continuing and worsening the abuses of his Republican predecessors against peace and civil liberties, and continuing the increasing intervention of government on behalf of big corporations.
Under both Republican and Democratic presidents, and Republican and Democratic congresses, in every combination, over the last 20 years we have seen trillions of dollars taken from Americans and spent to kill millions of foreigners and thousands of Americans . . . massive bailouts of corporate criminals . . . millions of Americans locked up, and thousands killed every year in the drug war . . . an ever growing problem of domestic surveillance and militarized police . . . seizures of homes and small businesses for the benefit of corporate developers . . . and much more.
Nor do I see a solution to these problems coming from the more extreme left either. Europe certainly has its slew of problems under democratic socialism, and the authoritarian “scientific” socialist nations, even far more so.
I believe now that the stated goals of the left can best – indeed, only – be achieved by libertarian means.
Feldman has it right on the Oregon thing, IMO.
And Shivany shoots and scores v. langa, who should know better than to put “the left” all in one basket.
Steve Kerbel responded at Facebook to my concerns about the Missouri action vis a vis abuse of escrow funds and holding of claim checks. Here’s his response:
That explanation seems reasonable to me.
langa,
Some of the people on the left share many of your same values and ideals.
I don’t paint all Libertarians with the same brush stroke, nor will I ever do that to any group of people.
As a young girl I fought for equality between men and women. As a young adult I fought for the rights of all people to marry whoever they want to and fought against hate crimes.
As a young woman I fought for my body to be mine. To not allow anyone to tell me what I can do with it.
As an older woman I find that I must fight that last fight again. Not for myself, for I can no longer bear children, but for my daughter, and all my sisters out there who just want to be left alone to make their own choices.
These are leftist progressive views. These are also Libertarian views. There is overlap in values for those of us considered to be “on the fringe”.
Leftists are not necessarily Democrats. In fact the Democrats have shifted so far to the right that Bernie Sanders, an Independent, is kicking Hillary’s ass. They closed down the left side of their tent years ago. But we hold our noses and vote D.
Not this time. This will be an election of your lifetime. I have a feeling we are in for a wild ride so stock up on Popcorn and let’s get the Libertarians on all 50 ballots!! I’ve signed up and I am ready to go. I just wish I was wealthy so I could go out and help Paulie.
Now can I drop the mic and walk off stage? LOL
140 characters by Marc Allan Feldman..
“Armed protesters? Yes. Anti-Government? Sure. Terrorists? No way. Terrorists terrorize the civilian population. Not #YallQaeda”
https://twitter.com/VotesNotForSale/status/683832200689762305
The Reason article pretty much gets it right, though I couldn’t help but laugh at this paragraph:
Domestic terrorists? Really? And here I was thinking liberals were just as skeptical as libertarians about the prudence of labelling everything and everyone a terrorist. Don’t they remember that every time someone brands someone else a terrorist, the Patriot Act gets a dozen pages longer? Government power relies upon such unfounded suspicions.
The only time the Left expresses any concern over “government power” is when it’s being used in a way that doesn’t further their agenda. Of course, the same is true of the Right.
A critique of the Oregon hysteria from Reason. A quality & quick read.
https://reason.com/blog/2016/01/03/on-oregonunderattack-and-yallqaeda-stop
The Federal government appears so far to be giving these people the attention they give declarations of war from Grand Fenwick.
The progressive media types & social media junkies are pushing the Oregon situation hard. They’re salivating at the idea of the Feds coming in an killing them all. They seek a solution from a corrupt government even though a corrupt government created the problem.
Deran and Paulie,
Augustus Invictus has taken 3 minutes to talk about the Oregon event.
https://soundcloud.com/invictusforsenate/fireside-chat-on-armed-insurrection
“Armed protesters at national wildlife refuge say government force would risk lives”
Thank you all for your suggestions.
The healthcare one is a sticky wicket.
My pre-existing condition is chronic pain which was caused by an earlier event. I take Tylenol 3s for it. Because of the DEA designation of codeine being on the same schedule as other opiates, the insurance companies always red-flagged me as having a pre-existing condition.
With the ACA, at least I don’t have to pay $1000 a month just to get a scripts for my meds, which I also then pay for.
I know that the pure Libertarian view is towards free market heathcare. Would some kind of socialized medicine like France, Germany and Sweden have work as well? Sorry but these are the only 3 I am familiar with. I know that the UK allows you to buy private insurance rather than use the state’s system. Australia also has an excellent system now that I am thinking of it.
Australia is interesting in that it compels all of it’s citizens to vote. I find that fascinating as well. I have a friend in Australia. He thinks that the way we handle healthcare here is barbaric. He also thinks the death penalty is barbaric.
I absolutely love having honest and civil dialogue with people about such things. They help you to find your way and think for yourself.
Is it possible to embrace the Libertarian ideals and yet cherry pick one or two that may not fit with your own view of the world? Can you still say, I am a Libertarian?
Meanwhile back at email forwards from my dad…
From: Alex
Subject: FW: ????? 2016!
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 2016 10:37:41 -0500
????? ? ???? 2016-?? ????? ??? ???? ??? ?????????????!
666+666+666+6+6+6=
===========================
Sent from my microwave 😉
IPR version https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2015/02/the-path-from-r-or-d-to-3rd/
http://amthirdpartyreport.com/2015/03/04/how-the-left-left-me/
How the Left left me (by me, Paulie)
Not quite a book, but I mention some of the books that helped me out in my own journey from left/liberal to libertarian about 20-25 years ago. Scroll down past my ugly mug 🙂
It sounds to me like Shivany is on that same journey now so she may enjoy reading my short essay on the subject. The title refers to a group project (“how we left the left”) that I started trying to participate in but that essay was as far as I got.
I suppose I should flog my book (free download available), which has a long section about the Libertarian Party:
KN@PPSTER’s Big Freakin’ Book of Stuff
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2014/01/wes-benedict-4-libertarian-books-for-30-bucks/
These four books are a great place to start. If you write [email protected] he will send you his own book, maybe even free of charge or for just the shipping costs if you ask him nicely.
http://theadvocates.donorshops.com/products/books.php is a great place to get those others and some other great intros.
I also recommend https://c4ss.org/resources
http://distro.libertarianleft.org/for/chartier-conscience-of-an-anarchist/?referredby=c4ss.org is very accessibly written.
They also have https://c4ss.org/audiobooks
Shivany,
Health care is one of those problems where libertarians understand what went wrong, but have various ideas on how to fix it.
As Chuck points out, the meaning of “insurance” has been completely changed. It used to be hedged bet. You paid a small premium and were covered if something major and expensive went wrong. What we’ve increasingly had since the 1960s isn’t “insurance,” it’s pre-paid health care. And when it’s formatted such that it covers pretty much everything, well, people use it a lot more. But the equation remains the same: The “insurance” companies have to take in more money than they spend, or they go bankrupt. So it’s going to be more expensive than real insurance, and the increased demand “hey, I can use it for everything” causes is going to jack up demand versus supply, raising prices.
How do we un-do the damage without lots of people getting hurt in the process? Good question. One thing to keep in mind is that libertarians don’t have all the answers. And most of us don’t claim to. But our basic premise is that the market handles things better than the state does, and that we should move away from the state and toward the market.
This is less an issue of us telling you how to do it than YOU getting involved and helping us figure it out.
Also http://www.ruwart.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Healing-Our-World-The-Other-Piece-of-the-Puzzle-1993.pdf … if you want to jump right to the chapter on health care go to page 72 but I highly recommend reading the whole thing. There’s a newer, expanded version for sale at ruwart.com as well.
Shivany, regarding health insurance, I recommend
http://praxeology.net/aotp.htm#1
Some of the links are outdated, but you may be able to backfill some of them with archive.org and/or internet searches for the source material.
Deran,
Unlike Augustus Invictus, they are not LP members or party officers (Invictus is the secretary of the local LP in the county which includes Orlando, site of the upcoming national convention, and an announced candidate for secretary of the state LP in Florida, in addition to being the only announced candidate for the US Senate nomination…although as far as I know he still needs to raise his filing fee for the latter). In fact as far as I know they are not libertarian at all. Likely more “constitutionalist/patriot” types.
Chuck, that was an excellent walk through and reading list.
There are a few history books I suggest:
The Myth of the Robber Barons: A New Look at the Rise of Big Business in America by Burton Folsom
A Renegade History of the United States by Thaddeus Russell
Both are very entertaining reads.
Hey and I am even old enough to remember Barry Goldwater and Milton Friedman!!
I must get some sleep now. I am truly and honestly interested in learning all I can. This is the place where I will get a crash course. So even though I am mentally ill and unhinged, I think i have something to contribute and I can help.
Some examples of the economic way of thinking:
1. resources are scarce and must be allocated somehow
2. people respond to incentives
3. choices have opportunity costs
4. actions often have unintended consequences
5. prices are determined by supply and demand
6. specialization and division of labor increase productivity
7. trade benefits both parties
8. cooperation emerges through spontaneous order
9. some actions have externalities: costs/benefits imposed on others
10. politicians/bureaucrats/voters are self-interested agents
11. broken window fallacy: don’t focus on what is seen and ignore what is unseen
Here are a few of my favorite libertarian quotes:
“Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” — Ronald Reagan
“It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a dismal science. But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.” — Murray Rothbard
“Censorship is telling a man he can’t have a steak just because a baby can’t chew it.” — Mark Twain
“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.” — William Pitt
“What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don’t like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don’t expect freedom to survive very long.” — Thomas Sowell
“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” — Barry Goldwater
“We will oppose contemporary liberals when they fail to distinguish between a virtue and a requirement. We will oppose contemporary conservatives when they fail to distinguish between a sin and a crime.” — Bill Niskanen
“A man is no less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years.” — Lysander Spooner
Shivany Lane wrote:
We haven’t had a free market in healthcare for many years. Healthcare was tied to employers due to tax incentives because government wage and price controls left employers wanting a way to attract workers when they weren’t allowed to pay more. HMOs were also a creation of government regulation.
Fundamentally, most people misunderstand what insurance is. Insurance is supposed to help risk averse people prepare for a rare, unpredictable event that occurs across a population with a predictable probability. Healthcare as currently designed is not insurance. Ignoring preexisting conditions when enrolling people in insurance makes no sense. You can’t get fire insurance while your house is on fire. Current healthcare is more like an all-you-can-eat buffet… and the consequences are over-indulgence and rising costs. People do not bear the costs of their decisions when they have healthcare, so they do not drive costs down by competitively shopping. Free doctors’ visits and free birth control are analogous to your car insurance paying for gas — of course, people would drive a lot more and leave their cars running all the time.
Healthcare is too big a mess to deal with in a comment… or in a book. I’d suggest looking at the Cato Institute for libertarian perspectives on a lot of issues, including healthcare.
I should have mentioned this book in my earlier comment:
Cato Handbook for Policymakers
http://www.cato.org/cato-handbook-policymakers/cato-handbook-policymakers-7th-edition-2009
See Cato on healthcare:
http://www.cato.org/research/health-care
David Henderson has a good piece here:
http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/regulation/2015/6/regulation-v38n2-11-update.pdf
Thank you Chuck, I will look up those books right now. It would be awesome if they were on audio but reading is good too. I like to knit while listening to books. It keeps me from getting antsy and wanting to do stuff.
Shivany Lane wrote:
See my earlier comment:
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2015/12/john-mcafee-announces-he-will-seek-libertarian-presidential-nomination/#comment-1286837
As mentioned there I highly recommend The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible: A Free Market Odyssey by Ken Schoolland as an easy read that provides a crash course in free market economics intuition.
For more general libertarianism and free market economics, I recommend:
Why Government Doesn’t Work by Harry Browne
Libertarianism: A Primer by David Boaz
Free to Choose: A Personal Statement by Milton Friedman
The Conscience of a Conservative by Barry Goldwater
OK let me get things started then:
Something very near and dear to my heart is healthcare.
Currently the American healthcare system is broken. I believe in a free market. In practice, the healthcare providers do not practice it. I may be mistaken in the definition of a free market..
For instance. Before the Affordable Care Act was made into a law, I was unable to procure my own healthcare. I could through my employer, but if I wanted to do contract work, the amount of money they would charge me would not be worth even working. I have a pre existing condition. It’s called being a female. Most females I know have some sort of condition, BTW they count Birth Control as a condition.
Every other developed country in the world, even some we would not consider developed yet, provides basic healthcare for their citizens. The Libertarian party believes my health decisions are my own to make.including whether or not to have insurance and who I may want to have insurance with. I know that a true free market will always keep costs reasonable, however, it will take generations to undo the mess we have made with Big Medicine and Big Pharma. So in the interim, what is it that you would propose?
I don’t want to pay higher insurance than my daughter because I am older, that is not free choice. I don’t want to be denied health insurance because I currently take regular medications, that also is not free choice. (at least not my free choice). My choice would be to keep the doctor I have and have the cost be a reasonable amount, comparable to the services they provide. For instance, I only go for my regular checkups. Should I pay more or less for insurance than the person who goes in every week?
I’ve read your principles and agree mostly with them. I am just trying to translate them into a real world example?
If you all want me to go away again just say so 🙂 I am trying to be as polite and humble as I can be.
I can shed a little light on John McAfee’s alleged legal issues in Belize. I have researched the case, Belize, it’s government and John’s own statements thoroughly, well as thoroughly as an armchair data analyst can 🙂
I also would like to know if any of you or more than one of you would like to help me understand the Libertarian party.I know I came in like an Annie Oakley and shot up the place, now I want to mend fences and get to know more about my new party.
I joined the National Party and the California State Party. I am planning on going to the California convention. I’m a fairly bright person and I do apologize for the economics rant. I had never heard of Mise and I took quite a few economic classes. So it seems that there is so much I need to learn and I need to take a crash course. Many of you live and breath the Party, I am just a newb who is humbling myself to you for forgiveness and guidance.
Oh and Happy new year. This is going to be an exciting year. The only thing missing is me having a “real job” to go to every day. I feel that the political arena is going to be the most fascinating of my lifetime. Especially since I switched teams.
I think these wanna be friekorpsmen are far more destructive to the Libertarian than Mr. Invictus!
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/01/03/bundy-brothers-militia-occupy-oregon-wildlife-refuge-building.html
I have the pirated version (Avast matey!) and it doesn’t work anyway.
IPR seems to be driving my antivirus program (Avast) crazy today — something about a certificate being revoked. Anyone else having a similar problem?
Now the countdown begins in earnest. What’s the CA AIP ballot going to look like? How about the CP? Some seem to be pandering to Trump, others are desperately seeking some big name. Do the people of America stand a chance? Is it really all for sale to the highest bidder with the greatest sex appeal? Let’s hope not! I will continue to persevere in my campaign. I will continue to espouse Constitutional principles and advocate for the Rule of Law. I look forward to the first national debate of CP POTUS candidates in Boise at the end of February.
trying again to be subscribed
Andy,
I reminded the campaign of your question.
Tom, I will alert someone from the campaign as to your questions and hopefully someone will come answer them.
Paulie,
The only discussion of allegations I see at that link have to do with allegations that he sold “unlicensed securities” in Colorado.
The Missouri complaint accuses him and his firm of a) misappropriating escrow funds for purposes other than the escrow agreements allowed, and b) writing checks to pay valid insurance claims, then not mailing those checks and making the people who were owed money wait on that money for unduly long periods of time.
In the settlement, Kerbel does not seem to admit to the truth of the allegations, although he does admit that the activities alleged were violations of law IF they occurred; and to settle without further litigation, he consented to have his license to sell insurance in Missouri revoked.
Now it COULD be that the allegations were false but that litigating them would have been so expensive that it was easier for him to just have his company give up its Missouri market.
But if the allegations were true, both of them clearly indicate initiations of force. Using money in escrow accounts for purposes other than the escrow agreements designate is theft. Intentionally holding on to money that is not yours (because you have acknowledged that it now belongs to someone else due to a valid insurance claim) is theft of the value of that money for the time it was held.
So I’d be interested in knowing the true facts of what happened there.
I sincerely hope people in this country can start to turn away from our murderous military and anti-liberty politicians and start to turn this country around.
Happy New Year, everyone!
See the discussion thread at https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2015/04/steve-kerbel-seeking-libertarian-partys-2016-presidential-nomination/ There’s some discussion of his background and the allegations against him, and Kerbel participates in some of it.
I am interested in finding out more about the insurance scam accusations against Steve Kerbel, as mentioned above by Thomas Knapp.
Also, I still have not received an answer to the question of how long Steve Kerbel has been a Libertarian. I have been in the party for 19 1/2 years, and I had never heard of him until recently.
From Kerbel’s page:
Hi everyone! I woke up this morning with such excitement and enthusiasm from all of the support our campaign is receiving. When I started this adventure I started with the premise that if I educated and inspired just a few hundred people all my effort and sacrifice would be worth it. Now we are positioned to educate and inspire hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people on what it means to be Libertarian. The best part about it, is that I get to be myself.
Please join me on my mission. Contribute to the campaign with your time, expertise, or money. Help us secure the Libertarian Party nomination by becoming a delegate for your state to the national convention in May in Orlando Florida.
My name is Steve Kerbel. I am Libertarian. http://stevekerbel2016.com
Happy New Year to all my friends here at IPR! Let’s hope it is a good one for alternative parties and for our nation in general.
Might as well get things kicked off with a comparison of two candidates for the Libertarian Party’s 2016 presidential nomination on a specific issue.
One of those candidates, John McAfee, has spilled considerable ink (or at least considerable video footage) credibly disputing the accusation that he murdered his neighbor in Belize.
So far as I can tell, the other, Steve Kerbel, hasn’t given much more than a quick “it was a misunderstanding” brush-off to accusations he settled with the state of Missouri by consenting to revocation of his insurance license. At least two of said accusations, abuse of escrow funds for illicit purposes, and withholding insurance checks for insurance claims long after the claims were acknowledged as valid and the checks actually written, amount to fraud under any reasonable definition of the term.
Hope everyone has a wonderful 2016!
Happy New Year!!!