Langa, when I was a plumbliner, I had the same sort of overreaction to matters of war that you are displaying. So I shouldn’t be surprised. Still, I have no fixation on the subject of humanitarian war. I’m heavily biased against war, although I am not a pacifist.
For me, “never say never” is great wisdom on many levels. It allows for the possibility that with little risk, many lives might be saved, depending on a situation. It makes GJ not sound like a zealous dogmatist, which is not a positive quality in a pol. It allows for compassionate acts. It’s overwhelmingly popular.
Personally, I don’t see backing rebels as being a humanitarian war. That’s getting involved in a civil war, which I see as a different thing entirely. I can think of no circumstance where intervention in a civil war worked out, except perhaps the American Revolution, where the US benefited from — rather than intervened in — a rebel cause.
langa
January 20, 2016
Should say “contributed to it” rather than “caused it”…
But the point remains the same: the whole concept of “humanitarian” war is a sick joke, used purely as a pretext for global adventurism.
langa
January 20, 2016
RC, since you are so fixated on hypothetical “humanitarian” war as a tool to combat hypothetical genocide, you might be interested in how “humanitarian” war (U.S. backing of Libyan rebels to overthrow Gaddafi), far from preventing genocide, actually caused it!
This is an interesting topic. I generally believe that the primary purpose of the criminal justice system should be providing restitution to victims, and there are some cases where restitution is difficult (e.g. murder), that I think a form of “slavery” could be justified. For example, I think that forcing a convicted murderer to spend the rest of his life working, with anything produced beyond his basic subsistence needs going to the heirs of his victim, would be more humane, more logical, and more just than the death penalty, which I strongly oppose, or having him rot in jail, at the expense of the taxpayers. Having said that, the type of prison slave labor that occurs in the status quo is obviously a far different thing, and I agree with you that it is unacceptable.
He won’t be president so he isn’t going to start any wars. To the extent that whatever he thinks matters, it’s because he gets a platform to express his opinions which is somewhat amplified if he gets the nomination. And most of the noises he makes about foreign policy and military spending issues are along the lines of ending the wars, bringing the troops home, and saving taxpayers money. In fact, to the extent that his comments about humanitarian wars have any weight at all it’s to the extent that other libertarians who don’t like them keep bringing them up. Other than that I never or practically never see them mentioned anywhere by anyone ever.
langa
January 19, 2016
That’s not just a hypothetical. Slavery was never outlawed for prisoners. There are in fact more prisoner slaves in the US today than when the 13th amendment was passed, albeit fewer proportionally to the population. Johnson has not advocated outlawing prisoner slavery as far as I know, although he does support policies which would reduce the number of prisoners and thus of prisoner slaves. To be fair, I don’t remember other LP presidential candidates call for outlawing slave labor in prison either, but I don’t remember anyone asking them about it, either.
This is an interesting topic. I generally believe that the primary purpose of the criminal justice system should be providing restitution to victims, and there are some cases where restitution is difficult (e.g. murder), that I think a form of “slavery” could be justified. For example, I think that forcing a convicted murderer to spend the rest of his life working, with anything produced beyond his basic subsistence needs going to the heirs of his victim, would be more humane, more logical, and more just than the death penalty, which I strongly oppose, or having him rot in jail, at the expense of the taxpayers. Having said that, the type of prison slave labor that occurs in the status quo is obviously a far different thing, and I agree with you that it is unacceptable.
langa
January 19, 2016
I don’t think the analogy is correct though, because a bigger border fence would be an active expansion of government monopoly force. The balance of Johnson’s statements I have seen about war, peace and military spending is that he would cut back on war and military spending but not eliminate them. A bigger fence would be “morearchist” using the Capozzi taxonomy, whereas Johnson’s vestigial inability to rule out all “humanitarian” wars under all circumstances, while not anarchist or strict minarchist, is nevertheless “lessarchist” per the same taxonomy.
That’s true as far as it goes, but any particular war that Johnson might start would obviously be a huge expansion of government force, and I don’t think it would be any comfort to the victims of that war that he might have, on balance, reduced total troop deployments, or total military spending.
I fully agree with your comments about his Shariaphobia and his invocation of the “Fair” Tax.
langa
January 19, 2016
Genocide is, by my way of thinking, a form of war. And for me I’d rather be at war than a slave.
War frequently involves genocide and/or slavery, plus a host of other awful things, such as murder, rape, mutilation, theft, destruction of property, starvation, disease, torture, and just about every other terrible action under the sun. It is literally the greatest evil the world has ever known.
What’s with the scare quotes around “reasonable and virtuous”? Do you have a problem with those concepts?
I have no problem with the concepts themselves. If you are suggesting that there has ever been a war (“humanitarian” or not) that could be described as reasonable or virtuous, then yes, I have a big problem with that.
Let’s say Johnson said (out of the blue, much like he did with the burqa ban), that while he didn’t “support” going back to slavery, that he wouldn’t “totally rule it out” under certain circumstances
That’s not just a hypothetical. Slavery was never outlawed for prisoners. There are in fact more prisoner slaves in the US today than when the 13th amendment was passed, albeit fewer proportionally to the population. Johnson has not advocated outlawing prisoner slavery as far as I know, although he does support policies which would reduce the number of prisoners and thus of prisoner slaves. To be fair, I don’t remember other LP presidential candidates call for outlawing slave labor in prison either, but I don’t remember anyone asking them about it, either.
First, the original comment you were replying to was from Root’s Teeth, not me.
Oops, my mistake. Sorry for the confusion.
you certainly seem willing to tolerate it.
Nope.
And you never answered my question about whether you would tolerate Johnson leaving the door open for building a border fence. (For the record, I would also consider that position intolerable, although not quite as bad as his support for “humanitarian” wars.)
No more than I am willing to tolerate support for “humanitarian” wars. Any time he or anyone else supports monopoly government solutions, I oppose it.
I don’t think the analogy is correct though, because a bigger border fence would be an active expansion of government monopoly force. The balance of Johnson’s statements I have seen about war, peace and military spending is that he would cut back on war and military spending but not eliminate them. A bigger fence would be “morearchist” using the Capozzi taxonomy, whereas Johnson’s vestigial inability to rule out all “humanitarian” wars under all circumstances, while not anarchist or strict minarchist, is nevertheless “lessarchist” per the same taxonomy. On the other hand Johnson’s shariaphobia is “morearchist” if and when it ever gets implemented and to whatever degree its advocacy helps foster, and I am not willing to tolerate that. His support for starting a tax reform conversation around the fraudulent, ultra-morearchist “fair” tax is also very troubling, especially at the those times when he doesn’t have the time to clarify that he doesn’t necessarily support the exact “fair” tax bill exactly as is. There are some other areas of serious concern as well.
Robert Capozzi
January 19, 2016
L: War is also a “very real phenomenon” that’s more common and worse than either genocide or slavery.
me: Genocide is, by my way of thinking, a form of war. And for me I’d rather be at war than a slave.
L: Therefore, it’s even more “reasonable and virtuous” to stand against war than against the other things.
me: Non sequitur, as I see it. As a general matter, I too stand against war, including genocides. I stand against most specific wars as well.
What’s with the scare quotes around “reasonable and virtuous”? Do you have a problem with those concepts?
langa
January 19, 2016
War is also a “very real phenomenon” that’s more common and worse than either genocide or slavery.
Therefore, it’s even more “reasonable and virtuous” to stand against war than against the other things.
Robert Capozzi
January 19, 2016
Langa, genocides happen with far too much frequency in this world, including recently. Putting a genocide on the US border is a way to draw attention a very real phenomenon and to make it more real by placing the event close to the US.
Slavery happens too, but it’s reasonable and virtuous to stand for banning it.
“Governments, when instituted,” might be the best way to thwarting a genocide. It’s wise in my estimation to allow for the possibility that the USG might use force to stop mass killings outside its border, depending on a variety of factors. Personally, I’m heavily biased against using US military in any military actions beyond pure defense of the nation. I’d rather see Langa Brigades do so, or neighboring nations, or international forces thwart the genocide, to be sure.
IF that makes me a “neocon” in your mind, you are entitled to use the label in a non-standard manner. That’s the thing with opinions and word usage: It’s completely subjective.
You can take the position that it would be inappropriate for the US to deploy 1000 soldiers for say 3 months to thwart the killing of a million non-US citizens off our shores. Good luck convincing the 99% of non-L voters of the virtue of your position.
langa
January 19, 2016
I’m sticking with “evading.”
If anyone is “evading” here, it’s Johnson. He wants to appear to be antiwar, while still leaving the door open to support future wars by pretending they are being fought for “humanitarian” reasons, just as the neocons claimed that one of their reasons for invading Iraq was to “liberate” the Iraqi people, and just as the same neocons still try to use to justify going to war in Syria, and just as they will continue to say every time they start itching to fight another war. It’s a war of “liberation” — or, in Johnson’s phrase, a “humanitarian” war.
Meanwhile, since you like crazy hypotheticals so much, here’s one for you: Let’s say Johnson said (out of the blue, much like he did with the burqa ban), that while he didn’t “support” going back to slavery, that he wouldn’t “totally rule it out” under certain circumstances. I’m guessing (or at least hoping) that you wouldn’t find this to be an acceptable thing for an LP nominee to say. However, imagine that one of his rabid supporters came on IPR, and posed the following: “Well, what if an aggressive race of space aliens came to Earth, and issued President Johnson an ultimatum. Either he has to turn over 10% of the U.S. population to be taken back to their planet as slaves, or else the aliens will kill every single man, woman, and child in America — and, of course, with their technological superiority, they could do so with ease.” Would the invocation of this insanely unlikely hypothetical cause you to change your mind about Johnson’s refusal to totally condemn slavery?
langa
January 19, 2016
All I said, contrary to your previous comment, Johnson is not eager to get into humanitarian wars and as in fact a lessarchist on issues of war and peace. You seem to incorrectly assume that I find the idea of supporting humanitarian wars to be acceptable myself.
First, the original comment you were replying to was from Root’s Teeth, not me.
Second, I don’t know if I would go as far as saying that you “accept” Johnson’s support for humanitarian wars, but you certainly seem willing to tolerate it.
And you never answered my question about whether you would tolerate Johnson leaving the door open for building a border fence. (For the record, I would also consider that position intolerable, although not quite as bad as his support for “humanitarian” wars.)
I’ll guess it’s most likely the same old boilerplate from the Republican campaign in 2011 because no one has bothered to update it ever, but he’s generally been a lot better than that on peace issues in interviews, youtubes, etc, in the years since joining the LP. Not consistently enough for my taste, but better than the website boilerplate.
And what he has up on his campaign web site right is a bunch of mealy-mouthed nonsense clearly written for the express purpose of allowing him to appear to be saying something while saying nothing, so that, not having actually taken any position more specific than “all those other guys did it wrong but I will do it right,” he cannot at any time in the future be called to account for flip-flopping.
I personally found it somewhat instructive, as until reading that mess, I hadn’t known for sure if that’s what he was up to, or if he was just the victim of a tendency to say whatever bullshit popped into his head at any given moment. So at least we know there’s some kind of intent there as opposed to just Forrest Gump/Chauncey Gardiner weirdess.
Robert Capozzi
January 19, 2016
L: I’m not “evading” anything. I simply refuse to waste time giving serious answers to such silly questions.
Personally, I find this kind of fence-straddling unacceptable
All I said, contrary to your previous comment, Johnson is not eager to get into humanitarian wars and as in fact a lessarchist on issues of war and peace. You seem to incorrectly assume that I find the idea of supporting humanitarian wars to be acceptable myself.
Similarly, I find coercive taxation to be unacceptable, but a candidate who wants to cut taxes in half is still a lessarchist on taxes, albeit still far from my own position. A candidate who only wants to legalize marijuana is still a lessarchist on drug policy, even though they would leave other drug laws unchanged. A candidate who wants to relax immigration quotas and streamline the immigration bureaucracy would be a lessarchist on that issue, despite falling far short of the even better open borders position.
langa
January 19, 2016
I’m not “evading” anything. I simply refuse to waste time giving serious answers to such silly questions.
Robert capozzi
January 19, 2016
L, you evade. Yes, private citizens can form a Langa Brigade, got it.
But, refresh my memory, would you oppose USG military action to stop a genocide on the US border?
langa
January 19, 2016
Well, RC, my answer this time is the same as it was the last time you brought up this particular absurd hypothetical: You, Gary Johnson and anybody else who wants to join are free to round up a posse, find yourselves some white horses to ride in on, and save all the Canadians you can.
Robert Capozzi
January 19, 2016
L: “No, I oppose it. But I wouldn’t totally rule it out, under certain circumstances.” That just doesn’t cut it.
me: Testing your absolutism…Ottawa goes berserk, and begins a genocide of French Canadians. Millions of French Canucks try to flee to the US, but the Royal Canadian Mounted Police gun them down at the border. Blood is literally trickling into VT.
Do you rule out intervention by the USG to stop the carnage?
Assuming its federal property, do you sue Ottawa for damages at The Hague?
unitary executor
January 18, 2016
Sugar is a sub-category of carbohydrates on FDA food labels. Not a “separate category” per se.
langa
January 18, 2016
That’s blatantly false. He said he would not rule out all humanitarian wars in all circumstances. However, he also has made abundantly clear more times than I can count that he wants a less interventionist, less muscular and less costly foreign policy, so it’s blatantly untrue that he is not a lessarchist on dismantling military empire. He’s not an anarchist or strict minarchist on it, at least not in the short term, true, but he does clearly want a lot less warmongering than what we have now.
Personally, I find this kind of fence-straddling unacceptable, especially on an issue that is so important to me. It reminds me of various D/R politicians. When asked if they favor torture, they say, “No, I oppose it. But I wouldn’t totally rule it out, under certain circumstances.” That just doesn’t cut it. When it comes to something as morally repugnant as torture, if you are unwilling to completely disavow the use of it, then as far as I’m concerned, you obviously don’t “get it” at all. The same is true when it comes to “humanitarian” war. It is so completely repugnant, and so antithetical to the libertarian philosophy, that anything less than a full rejection of it from the LP presidential candidate is a disgrace to the LP.
To take an issue that is very important to you, how would you feel if Gary Johnson, upon being asked about the possibility of constructing a Berlin-style wall on the border, explained that he didn’t really “support” it, but he also wouldn’t “completely rule it out” either? Would that be acceptable to you?
I wouldn’t classify myself as especially knowledgeable about food and labeling. I’ve done a bit of looking into it from various angles, primarily for reasons like trying to figure out what my own position should be on GMO labeling.
That personal position is:
– Voluntary organizations/groups, whether they are community groups, industry groups, whatever, should be free to develop their own definitions of “GMO” and develop labeling protocols that highlight those definitions. Customers who are interested in “GMO free” food (or whatever) should then be free to spend their dollars on food bearing the seals of approval of those groups.
– Government should neither forbid nor compel the above. Its MAXIMUM involvement should be adjudicating criminal or civil cases asserting fraud and so forth.
Religious groups do that effectively (e.g. the “(K)” mark certifying that you’ve met a rabbinical council’s standards for kashrut/kosher food). Other groups probably do as well, and if not, they should be allowed to, and whether they do or not, the government shouldn’t step into that role.
George Whitfield
January 17, 2016
Thomas Knapp: you are quite knowledgeable about food and labeling!
It’s not like labeling is objective now. If I pick up a box of something, it will tell me how many grams of sugar and how many grams of carbohydrates it contains.
But “sugars” are just forms (monosaccharides and disaccharides) of carbohydrates. How is it objective to separate them out in that particular way? It isn’t. Someone, somewhere, made the decision that they deserved to be split into separate labeling categories because … well, just because.
That box may also very well tell me how many “net carbs” the thing contains, which is calculated by subtracting 1 gram of carb for every gram of “dietary fiber.” What’s the objective basis for the “net carbs” claim? And what’s “dietary fiber” (hint: There are two large categories and numerous subtypes)? If I’m not mistaken, the “net carbs” thing came out of the whole Atkins movement to cater to people who are trying to calculate/cut carb consumption. I don’t have any problem with it, but informationally it’s more promotional than it is some kind of objectively verifiable and highly discrete criterion.
I’m not “for” mandatory GMO labeling. But I’m not against prohibiting it. I’d rather the issue got settled in the market, in the same way that, as you mention, kosher and halal have essentially been. Someone comes up with a set of criteria, popularizes a label understood to refer to those criteria, and makers who want to sell to the demographic desiring those criteria being adhered to use the label. As long as they’re not using it fraudulently or sneaking in extra arsenic without mentioning it, I’m good with that. But I can see why some libertarians might get pretty prickly about the subject, going in either direction from where I’m at.
Andy CraigPost author | January 17, 2016
Other than that I pretty much agree with your point about libertarians and labeling.
Andy CraigPost author | January 17, 2016
“”I don’t see that GMO/not GMO is any different in principle on that than fat content, calories per serving, actual ingredients lists, etc.””
It is different in principle, because those things have an actual effect on the human body, and their presence or not and in a specified quantity is an objective physical fact. That’s why GMO labeling belongs in the same category as kosher labeling: there isn’t any more objective or scientific definition of what is or isn’t “GMO” or “organic” than what is or isn’t kosher. It’s just a subjective personal belief about something intangible being “unclean.”
Well, I’m against government-mandated anything, of course.
But I’ve noticed that things tend to come with labels, and I’ve noticed that, at least in my area, there’s this thing calling itself “government” whose operators simply can’t stand the idea of not having at least SOME rules on each and every discernible subject, labeling included.
Short of abolishing the state — a course which I heartily endorse, but which I’m in the minority on, even among libertarians — the argument is going to be about what the labels say. What they must say. What they must not say. What’s optional. And I don’t see that GMO/not GMO is any different in principle on that than fat content, calories per serving, actual ingredients lists, etc.
Personally I’d prefer the most minimal set of requirements and prohibitions we can get — freedom of sellers to include as much information as they think their customers want, provided that the claims aren’t false (e.g. farmed salmon being sold as “wild-caught”) and that obviously dangerous information is not omitted or falsified (e.g. “this package was sold as 100% pure cane sugar, but it turns out that it was 33% strychnine”).
But I can see where libertarians could in good faith go in either direction on that, whether all the way to “fuck this, let’s just talk about abolishing the state because if nothing else it simplifies things” or all the way in the other direction to “if there’s going to be labeling regulation it should be both very standard and fairly elaborate so as to convey the most information possible pursuant to minimizing the damage that bad information can inflict.”
The GMO thing gets pretty complex, enough so that I don’t automatically write off many positions on it.
What’s a GMO? Well, what’s “corn?” The stuff WE call corn today didn’t exist even a hundred years ago. It’s been carefully engineered, albeit using less direct methods than those currently in vogue. When did it stop just being “this or that variety of corn” and start being “GMO corn?”
To the extent that there’s going to be labeling — and there’s GOING to be labeling — it seems to me that any legitimate state interest would lie in requiring that labeling to be accurate rather than fraudulent, not in requiring some particular level of detail per se. But how detailed does it have to be to not be fraudulent? If I sell corn on one side of the above-mentioned line rather than the other, do I just get to call it “corn,” while someone selling corn from the other side of the line has to label it “GMO Variant BR-549 Corn Product?”
And speaking of lines, there’s a property line issue that kind of fuzzes up the usual libertarian understanding where property lines are very clear and conflicts over them are easily made understandable so they can be resolved.
Back circa 2008, I recall a situation in California that demonstrated how complex it is. There was an industrial hemp initiative that looked to me like something Steve Kubby would obviously support, it being obviously an “incremental” positive change.
But he opposed it.
Why? Because the industrial hemp it legalized would be required, by law, to be genetically modified to keep it below a certain THC level. And once you had bazillions of acres of that stuff planted, it would naturally, as propagating plants do, contaminate the higher-THC, not-yet-legal crops around it. The producers of the latter wouldn’t have legal recourse for their crops being ruined, of course, because their crops would still be illegal. So the measure wasn’t incremental in favor of cannabis legalization. It was basically a legal mandate to destroy cannabis as such by requiring genetic modification that would inevitably get into “the wild” and ruin other people’s stuff.
At least that’s the way I remember his argument, and I found it pretty persuasive.
At present, Monsanto patents and produces GMO seeds, sells them under very restrictive contracts — and then when their genes inevitably contaminate the crops of people who never bought from Monsanto and never contracted with Monsanto, sue for payment from the people they damaged, rather than paying damages themselves.
What’s property? Where are the property lines? What are the penalties for crossing them without permission?
None of this is new at all, of course. When I was a kid, we had neighbors who were known all around the area for their great sweet corn. They planted it every year and handed out wonderful roasting ears to everyone in the neighborhood. Then some of our OTHER neighbors thought it would be cool one year to grow some popcorn. The popcorn turned out to be great fun, and the other neighbors’ sweet corn that year turned out … well, a bunch of it was some sort of half-popcorn hybrid that didn’t make for good corn on the cob. The two neighbors didn’t like each other for awhile.
This is definitely an area I’d tend to give Johnson, or anyone else, some slack on. Maybe someone out there has done a really good job of sorting it all out from a libertarian perspective, but if so I haven’t come across that sorting yet.
Lessarchism is a rough guideline of the direction of movement. Granted, there can be a lot of variations.
Johnson might be a lessarchist on some issues that I regard as relatively trivial. But he supports “humanitarian wars,” so he’s no lessarchist on those issues — dismantling America’s military empire — that I consider paramount.
That’s blatantly false. He said he would not rule out all humanitarian wars in all circumstances. However, he also has made abundantly clear more times than I can count that he wants a less interventionist, less muscular and less costly foreign policy, so it’s blatantly untrue that he is not a lessarchist on dismantling military empire. He’s not an anarchist or strict minarchist on it, at least not in the short term, true, but he does clearly want a lot less warmongering than what we have now.
Root's Teeth Are Awesome
January 17, 2016
The term “lessarchist” is not very helpful. It implies that libertarianism is matter of degrees. That someone either wants more or less government.
The problem is that the term lessarchism focuses on the quantity of statism and ignores the quality of statism. That is, the specific issues on which the lessarchist wants less statism.
One lessarchist might support the war on drugs, but want a reduction in the sales tax.
Another might want to increase military spending, but also support gay marriage and abortion rights.
You might have several lessarchists, all of whom support a net reduction in government (assuming you could comparatively measure such a thing), but on entirely different issues. Which is the critical question, because libertarians differ as to which issues are a priority to them.
I’ve noticed that Capozzi is very fond of the word lessarchist (and of plumbline), but lessarchist is not very informative in describing someone, not unless one specifies where that particular lessarchist wants less statism, where he’d leave the level of statism as is, and where he’d increase government.
Johnson might be a lessarchist on some issues that I regard as relatively trivial. But he supports “humanitarian wars,” so he’s no lessarchist on those issues — dismantling America’s military empire — that I consider paramount.
I had a good conversation with Gary about labeling issues in person in 2013 or 14. He told me I convinced him, and pointed to that in later conversations with other people to tell them what a smart guy I am, but I heard him say the same stuff again later, so I’m not sure I really changed his mind, he may have just been blowing smoke up my ass.
Andy CraigPost author | January 17, 2016
I’ve seen him say he has no problem with labeling of some things for people who need to know out of legitimate medical need, and he often cites along those lines that he has Celiac and so can’t eat gluten, or diabetics who need to know how much sugar is in something, or somebody who needs to avoid allergens e.g. peanuts. From what he said it sounded like he mostly had in mind the sort of labeling of those things that we already have, and that he wouldn’t make a push of repealing that. I don’t that I agree I’d have those rules starting from scratch, but I agree I wouldn’t campaign on repealing them as some sort of urgent issue. He seemed less specific, or at least non-committal, on the topic of if GMOs fall into that category, in part because questioners never ask directly “Do you think GMOs are dangerous?” , they always couch it in transparency, “Do you support telling people what’s in their food?” etc.
It’s been a while, so I’m open to correction on that, but it’s my recollection of how I heard him answer the question once. Thankfully the “GMO labeling” craze has already peaked and passed and is on the decline, so it’ll be less of an issue (to the degree it was ever much of one) in 2016. Chipotle did a great job driving a nail in that coffin.
But now that I think of it, that’s a good topic to include on an LSN questionnaire to the candidates. If Johnson did say he supports GMO labeling, I have no problem saying I disagree with him on that. There are depressingly large number of libertarians who bought into that craze, because “right to know” and “labeling” sounds so harmless and unobjectionable, when of course it’s just an attempt to have the government force sellers of food to propagandize against their own products with junk science. The regulatory compliance and enforcement costs are also not trivial or minimal.
GMO labeling is akin not to labeling allergens or sugar content, but labeling something as kosher or halal. Which can be and is done without problem by voluntary associations in the private market.
Caryn Ann Harlos
January 17, 2016
I heard today (I heard this before and forgot) that he is in favour of mandatory GMO labeling.
“Overall, from all I’ve seen, his track record is strong from a lessarchist perspective. If you think otherwise”
I won’t know what I think until I do more digging. In 2012, I didn’t really bother looking at him beyond his current issues stands, etc. He was bad enough on those things, at that time for me to think it was really dumb for the LP to nominate him, but at the same time, since I wasn’t involved in the LP or working for a candidate at the time (other than very loosely advising the Wrights team, who ran an excellent campaign without much need for that advice), I had no reason to root into his past to find out whether or not he was also the Black Dahlia killer, an embezzler, a bad governor, etc.
This year, I guess I’ll have to give him the full colonoscopy.
Robert Capozzi
January 17, 2016
tk: The first thing that pops up when I start looking is a big highway boondoggle that seems at a glance to have been primarily a clumsy instrument for forking as much New Mexico taxpayer money as humanly possible over to the Koch brothers.
me: First I’ve heard of this. The first article I found was riddled with untruths, so I discount what it says, and all the links I clicked ended in 404 hell.
I will say I’m sure GJ’s tenure as governor was imperfect. He was in the mix, and when in the mix, mistakes are made. Overall, from all I’ve seen, his track record is strong from a lessarchist perspective.
If you think otherwise, perhaps you should lay it out in a Knappster essay. I’m open to hearing the alternative. I’m definitely concerned about his handlers who seem to’ve filled his head with silly Sharia-phobia, if I’ve connected the dots somewhat accurately.
“To be fair, his campaign debts don’t negatively affect everyone in the US and their descendants. Little different.”
That’s true.
On the other hand, it’s reasonable to project future results from past performance.
When I was a kid, my town elected a mayor whose only real credentials were that he had owned and managed a prominent local store. Of course, he had inherited that store and then driven it into bankruptcy.
And he was exactly the kind of financial disaster one would expect as mayor based on that past performance. Large amounts of money just disappeared with zero account or accountability. Being mayor was a part-time job with an insignificant salary, so he got the city council to create the position of city manager with a real salary — then appointed himself to the position.
My first real piece of political journalism was an interview with the guy. A fellow high school newspaper reporter and I got an appointment with him to talk about an $X million bond issue he wanted to float to build a new sewage treatment plant. It was a high school news story because there was an argument over floating that bond issue at the same time the school district was doing one for a new building.
So we arrived at 8am to visit with the mayor. He sat there chain-smoking Belairs and sipping bourbon out of a Diet Coke can and giving us what even high schoolers could tell were bullshit non-answers while we asked him what had happened to the LAST $X million he had been handed to build a new sewage treatment plant with (that had been five years before, and the plant had never been built).
He got his bond issue, the school didn’t get its bond issue, the sewage treatment plant actually got built that time, and he remained mayor until he was too old, infirm and pickled by alcohol to go through the motions any more. After he retired (and died almost immediately thereafter) the city basically went into receivership when a state audit found many, many millions of dollars completely unaccounted for. My nephew dodged a bullet on that one. He had turned down the job of city manager, under pressure to accept it after working his way up through the city employee ranks starting as a lab guy at that new sewage treatment plant, because he knew damn well what was coming.
Johnson has proven in two presidential campaigns — his 2012 Republican primary campaign and his 2012 Libertarian general election campaign — that he can’t balance a fucking checkbook. Why should anyone believe he’ll suddenly learn how to if handed executive responsibility for a multi-trillion-dollar federal budget?
As far as his days as governor go, I’ve seen the campaign propaganda about all the great shit he did and how fiscally responsible he was, but I haven’t seen much by way of actual sober recounting to see if it matches the propaganda. The first thing that pops up when I start looking is a big highway boondoggle that seems at a glance to have been primarily a clumsy instrument for forking as much New Mexico taxpayer money as humanly possible over to the Koch brothers.
Trent Hill
January 16, 2016
To be fair, his campaign debts don’t negatively affect everyone in the US and their descendants. Little different.
Robert Capozzi
January 16, 2016
A-/B+
No obvious gaffes. Still could be more fluid and engaging.
NewFederalist
January 15, 2016
Joe Wendt and did it again!
Joe Wendt
January 15, 2016
So, the man with a large campaign debt is lecturing people how to manage the national debt… give me a break. When he’s debt free, then he can talk about the National Debt.
He’s also making an unwise assumption. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio stand a good chance of being the GOP nominee, and Bernie Sanders could be the Dem nominee. He’s based his campaign of being the anti-Trump/Clinton without even publicly considering that that may not be the scenario come election day. He’s too shortsighted.
Langa, when I was a plumbliner, I had the same sort of overreaction to matters of war that you are displaying. So I shouldn’t be surprised. Still, I have no fixation on the subject of humanitarian war. I’m heavily biased against war, although I am not a pacifist.
For me, “never say never” is great wisdom on many levels. It allows for the possibility that with little risk, many lives might be saved, depending on a situation. It makes GJ not sound like a zealous dogmatist, which is not a positive quality in a pol. It allows for compassionate acts. It’s overwhelmingly popular.
Personally, I don’t see backing rebels as being a humanitarian war. That’s getting involved in a civil war, which I see as a different thing entirely. I can think of no circumstance where intervention in a civil war worked out, except perhaps the American Revolution, where the US benefited from — rather than intervened in — a rebel cause.
Should say “contributed to it” rather than “caused it”…
But the point remains the same: the whole concept of “humanitarian” war is a sick joke, used purely as a pretext for global adventurism.
RC, since you are so fixated on hypothetical “humanitarian” war as a tool to combat hypothetical genocide, you might be interested in how “humanitarian” war (U.S. backing of Libyan rebels to overthrow Gaddafi), far from preventing genocide, actually caused it!
https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/hillarys-africa-genocide-problem/#more-575178
Yes, on all points.
He won’t be president so he isn’t going to start any wars. To the extent that whatever he thinks matters, it’s because he gets a platform to express his opinions which is somewhat amplified if he gets the nomination. And most of the noises he makes about foreign policy and military spending issues are along the lines of ending the wars, bringing the troops home, and saving taxpayers money. In fact, to the extent that his comments about humanitarian wars have any weight at all it’s to the extent that other libertarians who don’t like them keep bringing them up. Other than that I never or practically never see them mentioned anywhere by anyone ever.
That’s not just a hypothetical. Slavery was never outlawed for prisoners. There are in fact more prisoner slaves in the US today than when the 13th amendment was passed, albeit fewer proportionally to the population. Johnson has not advocated outlawing prisoner slavery as far as I know, although he does support policies which would reduce the number of prisoners and thus of prisoner slaves. To be fair, I don’t remember other LP presidential candidates call for outlawing slave labor in prison either, but I don’t remember anyone asking them about it, either.
This is an interesting topic. I generally believe that the primary purpose of the criminal justice system should be providing restitution to victims, and there are some cases where restitution is difficult (e.g. murder), that I think a form of “slavery” could be justified. For example, I think that forcing a convicted murderer to spend the rest of his life working, with anything produced beyond his basic subsistence needs going to the heirs of his victim, would be more humane, more logical, and more just than the death penalty, which I strongly oppose, or having him rot in jail, at the expense of the taxpayers. Having said that, the type of prison slave labor that occurs in the status quo is obviously a far different thing, and I agree with you that it is unacceptable.
I don’t think the analogy is correct though, because a bigger border fence would be an active expansion of government monopoly force. The balance of Johnson’s statements I have seen about war, peace and military spending is that he would cut back on war and military spending but not eliminate them. A bigger fence would be “morearchist” using the Capozzi taxonomy, whereas Johnson’s vestigial inability to rule out all “humanitarian” wars under all circumstances, while not anarchist or strict minarchist, is nevertheless “lessarchist” per the same taxonomy.
That’s true as far as it goes, but any particular war that Johnson might start would obviously be a huge expansion of government force, and I don’t think it would be any comfort to the victims of that war that he might have, on balance, reduced total troop deployments, or total military spending.
I fully agree with your comments about his Shariaphobia and his invocation of the “Fair” Tax.
Genocide is, by my way of thinking, a form of war. And for me I’d rather be at war than a slave.
War frequently involves genocide and/or slavery, plus a host of other awful things, such as murder, rape, mutilation, theft, destruction of property, starvation, disease, torture, and just about every other terrible action under the sun. It is literally the greatest evil the world has ever known.
What’s with the scare quotes around “reasonable and virtuous”? Do you have a problem with those concepts?
I have no problem with the concepts themselves. If you are suggesting that there has ever been a war (“humanitarian” or not) that could be described as reasonable or virtuous, then yes, I have a big problem with that.
That’s not just a hypothetical. Slavery was never outlawed for prisoners. There are in fact more prisoner slaves in the US today than when the 13th amendment was passed, albeit fewer proportionally to the population. Johnson has not advocated outlawing prisoner slavery as far as I know, although he does support policies which would reduce the number of prisoners and thus of prisoner slaves. To be fair, I don’t remember other LP presidential candidates call for outlawing slave labor in prison either, but I don’t remember anyone asking them about it, either.
Oops, my mistake. Sorry for the confusion.
Nope.
No more than I am willing to tolerate support for “humanitarian” wars. Any time he or anyone else supports monopoly government solutions, I oppose it.
I don’t think the analogy is correct though, because a bigger border fence would be an active expansion of government monopoly force. The balance of Johnson’s statements I have seen about war, peace and military spending is that he would cut back on war and military spending but not eliminate them. A bigger fence would be “morearchist” using the Capozzi taxonomy, whereas Johnson’s vestigial inability to rule out all “humanitarian” wars under all circumstances, while not anarchist or strict minarchist, is nevertheless “lessarchist” per the same taxonomy. On the other hand Johnson’s shariaphobia is “morearchist” if and when it ever gets implemented and to whatever degree its advocacy helps foster, and I am not willing to tolerate that. His support for starting a tax reform conversation around the fraudulent, ultra-morearchist “fair” tax is also very troubling, especially at the those times when he doesn’t have the time to clarify that he doesn’t necessarily support the exact “fair” tax bill exactly as is. There are some other areas of serious concern as well.
L: War is also a “very real phenomenon” that’s more common and worse than either genocide or slavery.
me: Genocide is, by my way of thinking, a form of war. And for me I’d rather be at war than a slave.
L: Therefore, it’s even more “reasonable and virtuous” to stand against war than against the other things.
me: Non sequitur, as I see it. As a general matter, I too stand against war, including genocides. I stand against most specific wars as well.
What’s with the scare quotes around “reasonable and virtuous”? Do you have a problem with those concepts?
War is also a “very real phenomenon” that’s more common and worse than either genocide or slavery.
Therefore, it’s even more “reasonable and virtuous” to stand against war than against the other things.
Langa, genocides happen with far too much frequency in this world, including recently. Putting a genocide on the US border is a way to draw attention a very real phenomenon and to make it more real by placing the event close to the US.
Slavery happens too, but it’s reasonable and virtuous to stand for banning it.
“Governments, when instituted,” might be the best way to thwarting a genocide. It’s wise in my estimation to allow for the possibility that the USG might use force to stop mass killings outside its border, depending on a variety of factors. Personally, I’m heavily biased against using US military in any military actions beyond pure defense of the nation. I’d rather see Langa Brigades do so, or neighboring nations, or international forces thwart the genocide, to be sure.
IF that makes me a “neocon” in your mind, you are entitled to use the label in a non-standard manner. That’s the thing with opinions and word usage: It’s completely subjective.
You can take the position that it would be inappropriate for the US to deploy 1000 soldiers for say 3 months to thwart the killing of a million non-US citizens off our shores. Good luck convincing the 99% of non-L voters of the virtue of your position.
I’m sticking with “evading.”
If anyone is “evading” here, it’s Johnson. He wants to appear to be antiwar, while still leaving the door open to support future wars by pretending they are being fought for “humanitarian” reasons, just as the neocons claimed that one of their reasons for invading Iraq was to “liberate” the Iraqi people, and just as the same neocons still try to use to justify going to war in Syria, and just as they will continue to say every time they start itching to fight another war. It’s a war of “liberation” — or, in Johnson’s phrase, a “humanitarian” war.
Meanwhile, since you like crazy hypotheticals so much, here’s one for you: Let’s say Johnson said (out of the blue, much like he did with the burqa ban), that while he didn’t “support” going back to slavery, that he wouldn’t “totally rule it out” under certain circumstances. I’m guessing (or at least hoping) that you wouldn’t find this to be an acceptable thing for an LP nominee to say. However, imagine that one of his rabid supporters came on IPR, and posed the following: “Well, what if an aggressive race of space aliens came to Earth, and issued President Johnson an ultimatum. Either he has to turn over 10% of the U.S. population to be taken back to their planet as slaves, or else the aliens will kill every single man, woman, and child in America — and, of course, with their technological superiority, they could do so with ease.” Would the invocation of this insanely unlikely hypothetical cause you to change your mind about Johnson’s refusal to totally condemn slavery?
All I said, contrary to your previous comment, Johnson is not eager to get into humanitarian wars and as in fact a lessarchist on issues of war and peace. You seem to incorrectly assume that I find the idea of supporting humanitarian wars to be acceptable myself.
First, the original comment you were replying to was from Root’s Teeth, not me.
Second, I don’t know if I would go as far as saying that you “accept” Johnson’s support for humanitarian wars, but you certainly seem willing to tolerate it.
And you never answered my question about whether you would tolerate Johnson leaving the door open for building a border fence. (For the record, I would also consider that position intolerable, although not quite as bad as his support for “humanitarian” wars.)
I’ll guess it’s most likely the same old boilerplate from the Republican campaign in 2011 because no one has bothered to update it ever, but he’s generally been a lot better than that on peace issues in interviews, youtubes, etc, in the years since joining the LP. Not consistently enough for my taste, but better than the website boilerplate.
When it comes to Johnson’s foreign policy positions, it’s instructive to look at what he’s got up on his campaign web site right now.
And what he has up on his campaign web site right is a bunch of mealy-mouthed nonsense clearly written for the express purpose of allowing him to appear to be saying something while saying nothing, so that, not having actually taken any position more specific than “all those other guys did it wrong but I will do it right,” he cannot at any time in the future be called to account for flip-flopping.
I personally found it somewhat instructive, as until reading that mess, I hadn’t known for sure if that’s what he was up to, or if he was just the victim of a tendency to say whatever bullshit popped into his head at any given moment. So at least we know there’s some kind of intent there as opposed to just Forrest Gump/Chauncey Gardiner weirdess.
L: I’m not “evading” anything. I simply refuse to waste time giving serious answers to such silly questions.
me: Yes or No would have taken you less time.
I’m sticking with “evading.”
All I said, contrary to your previous comment, Johnson is not eager to get into humanitarian wars and as in fact a lessarchist on issues of war and peace. You seem to incorrectly assume that I find the idea of supporting humanitarian wars to be acceptable myself.
Similarly, I find coercive taxation to be unacceptable, but a candidate who wants to cut taxes in half is still a lessarchist on taxes, albeit still far from my own position. A candidate who only wants to legalize marijuana is still a lessarchist on drug policy, even though they would leave other drug laws unchanged. A candidate who wants to relax immigration quotas and streamline the immigration bureaucracy would be a lessarchist on that issue, despite falling far short of the even better open borders position.
I’m not “evading” anything. I simply refuse to waste time giving serious answers to such silly questions.
L, you evade. Yes, private citizens can form a Langa Brigade, got it.
But, refresh my memory, would you oppose USG military action to stop a genocide on the US border?
Well, RC, my answer this time is the same as it was the last time you brought up this particular absurd hypothetical: You, Gary Johnson and anybody else who wants to join are free to round up a posse, find yourselves some white horses to ride in on, and save all the Canadians you can.
L: “No, I oppose it. But I wouldn’t totally rule it out, under certain circumstances.” That just doesn’t cut it.
me: Testing your absolutism…Ottawa goes berserk, and begins a genocide of French Canadians. Millions of French Canucks try to flee to the US, but the Royal Canadian Mounted Police gun them down at the border. Blood is literally trickling into VT.
Do you rule out intervention by the USG to stop the carnage?
Assuming its federal property, do you sue Ottawa for damages at The Hague?
Sugar is a sub-category of carbohydrates on FDA food labels. Not a “separate category” per se.
That’s blatantly false. He said he would not rule out all humanitarian wars in all circumstances. However, he also has made abundantly clear more times than I can count that he wants a less interventionist, less muscular and less costly foreign policy, so it’s blatantly untrue that he is not a lessarchist on dismantling military empire. He’s not an anarchist or strict minarchist on it, at least not in the short term, true, but he does clearly want a lot less warmongering than what we have now.
Personally, I find this kind of fence-straddling unacceptable, especially on an issue that is so important to me. It reminds me of various D/R politicians. When asked if they favor torture, they say, “No, I oppose it. But I wouldn’t totally rule it out, under certain circumstances.” That just doesn’t cut it. When it comes to something as morally repugnant as torture, if you are unwilling to completely disavow the use of it, then as far as I’m concerned, you obviously don’t “get it” at all. The same is true when it comes to “humanitarian” war. It is so completely repugnant, and so antithetical to the libertarian philosophy, that anything less than a full rejection of it from the LP presidential candidate is a disgrace to the LP.
To take an issue that is very important to you, how would you feel if Gary Johnson, upon being asked about the possibility of constructing a Berlin-style wall on the border, explained that he didn’t really “support” it, but he also wouldn’t “completely rule it out” either? Would that be acceptable to you?
George,
I wouldn’t classify myself as especially knowledgeable about food and labeling. I’ve done a bit of looking into it from various angles, primarily for reasons like trying to figure out what my own position should be on GMO labeling.
That personal position is:
– Voluntary organizations/groups, whether they are community groups, industry groups, whatever, should be free to develop their own definitions of “GMO” and develop labeling protocols that highlight those definitions. Customers who are interested in “GMO free” food (or whatever) should then be free to spend their dollars on food bearing the seals of approval of those groups.
– Government should neither forbid nor compel the above. Its MAXIMUM involvement should be adjudicating criminal or civil cases asserting fraud and so forth.
Religious groups do that effectively (e.g. the “(K)” mark certifying that you’ve met a rabbinical council’s standards for kashrut/kosher food). Other groups probably do as well, and if not, they should be allowed to, and whether they do or not, the government shouldn’t step into that role.
Thomas Knapp: you are quite knowledgeable about food and labeling!
Andy,
It’s not like labeling is objective now. If I pick up a box of something, it will tell me how many grams of sugar and how many grams of carbohydrates it contains.
But “sugars” are just forms (monosaccharides and disaccharides) of carbohydrates. How is it objective to separate them out in that particular way? It isn’t. Someone, somewhere, made the decision that they deserved to be split into separate labeling categories because … well, just because.
That box may also very well tell me how many “net carbs” the thing contains, which is calculated by subtracting 1 gram of carb for every gram of “dietary fiber.” What’s the objective basis for the “net carbs” claim? And what’s “dietary fiber” (hint: There are two large categories and numerous subtypes)? If I’m not mistaken, the “net carbs” thing came out of the whole Atkins movement to cater to people who are trying to calculate/cut carb consumption. I don’t have any problem with it, but informationally it’s more promotional than it is some kind of objectively verifiable and highly discrete criterion.
I’m not “for” mandatory GMO labeling. But I’m not against prohibiting it. I’d rather the issue got settled in the market, in the same way that, as you mention, kosher and halal have essentially been. Someone comes up with a set of criteria, popularizes a label understood to refer to those criteria, and makers who want to sell to the demographic desiring those criteria being adhered to use the label. As long as they’re not using it fraudulently or sneaking in extra arsenic without mentioning it, I’m good with that. But I can see why some libertarians might get pretty prickly about the subject, going in either direction from where I’m at.
Other than that I pretty much agree with your point about libertarians and labeling.
“”I don’t see that GMO/not GMO is any different in principle on that than fat content, calories per serving, actual ingredients lists, etc.””
It is different in principle, because those things have an actual effect on the human body, and their presence or not and in a specified quantity is an objective physical fact. That’s why GMO labeling belongs in the same category as kosher labeling: there isn’t any more objective or scientific definition of what is or isn’t “GMO” or “organic” than what is or isn’t kosher. It’s just a subjective personal belief about something intangible being “unclean.”
Well, I’m against government-mandated anything, of course.
But I’ve noticed that things tend to come with labels, and I’ve noticed that, at least in my area, there’s this thing calling itself “government” whose operators simply can’t stand the idea of not having at least SOME rules on each and every discernible subject, labeling included.
Short of abolishing the state — a course which I heartily endorse, but which I’m in the minority on, even among libertarians — the argument is going to be about what the labels say. What they must say. What they must not say. What’s optional. And I don’t see that GMO/not GMO is any different in principle on that than fat content, calories per serving, actual ingredients lists, etc.
Personally I’d prefer the most minimal set of requirements and prohibitions we can get — freedom of sellers to include as much information as they think their customers want, provided that the claims aren’t false (e.g. farmed salmon being sold as “wild-caught”) and that obviously dangerous information is not omitted or falsified (e.g. “this package was sold as 100% pure cane sugar, but it turns out that it was 33% strychnine”).
But I can see where libertarians could in good faith go in either direction on that, whether all the way to “fuck this, let’s just talk about abolishing the state because if nothing else it simplifies things” or all the way in the other direction to “if there’s going to be labeling regulation it should be both very standard and fairly elaborate so as to convey the most information possible pursuant to minimizing the damage that bad information can inflict.”
Agreed, that’s an interesting question, although a separate one from government-mandated labeling, as far as I can tell.
The GMO thing gets pretty complex, enough so that I don’t automatically write off many positions on it.
What’s a GMO? Well, what’s “corn?” The stuff WE call corn today didn’t exist even a hundred years ago. It’s been carefully engineered, albeit using less direct methods than those currently in vogue. When did it stop just being “this or that variety of corn” and start being “GMO corn?”
To the extent that there’s going to be labeling — and there’s GOING to be labeling — it seems to me that any legitimate state interest would lie in requiring that labeling to be accurate rather than fraudulent, not in requiring some particular level of detail per se. But how detailed does it have to be to not be fraudulent? If I sell corn on one side of the above-mentioned line rather than the other, do I just get to call it “corn,” while someone selling corn from the other side of the line has to label it “GMO Variant BR-549 Corn Product?”
And speaking of lines, there’s a property line issue that kind of fuzzes up the usual libertarian understanding where property lines are very clear and conflicts over them are easily made understandable so they can be resolved.
Back circa 2008, I recall a situation in California that demonstrated how complex it is. There was an industrial hemp initiative that looked to me like something Steve Kubby would obviously support, it being obviously an “incremental” positive change.
But he opposed it.
Why? Because the industrial hemp it legalized would be required, by law, to be genetically modified to keep it below a certain THC level. And once you had bazillions of acres of that stuff planted, it would naturally, as propagating plants do, contaminate the higher-THC, not-yet-legal crops around it. The producers of the latter wouldn’t have legal recourse for their crops being ruined, of course, because their crops would still be illegal. So the measure wasn’t incremental in favor of cannabis legalization. It was basically a legal mandate to destroy cannabis as such by requiring genetic modification that would inevitably get into “the wild” and ruin other people’s stuff.
At least that’s the way I remember his argument, and I found it pretty persuasive.
At present, Monsanto patents and produces GMO seeds, sells them under very restrictive contracts — and then when their genes inevitably contaminate the crops of people who never bought from Monsanto and never contracted with Monsanto, sue for payment from the people they damaged, rather than paying damages themselves.
What’s property? Where are the property lines? What are the penalties for crossing them without permission?
None of this is new at all, of course. When I was a kid, we had neighbors who were known all around the area for their great sweet corn. They planted it every year and handed out wonderful roasting ears to everyone in the neighborhood. Then some of our OTHER neighbors thought it would be cool one year to grow some popcorn. The popcorn turned out to be great fun, and the other neighbors’ sweet corn that year turned out … well, a bunch of it was some sort of half-popcorn hybrid that didn’t make for good corn on the cob. The two neighbors didn’t like each other for awhile.
This is definitely an area I’d tend to give Johnson, or anyone else, some slack on. Maybe someone out there has done a really good job of sorting it all out from a libertarian perspective, but if so I haven’t come across that sorting yet.
Lessarchism is a rough guideline of the direction of movement. Granted, there can be a lot of variations.
That’s blatantly false. He said he would not rule out all humanitarian wars in all circumstances. However, he also has made abundantly clear more times than I can count that he wants a less interventionist, less muscular and less costly foreign policy, so it’s blatantly untrue that he is not a lessarchist on dismantling military empire. He’s not an anarchist or strict minarchist on it, at least not in the short term, true, but he does clearly want a lot less warmongering than what we have now.
The term “lessarchist” is not very helpful. It implies that libertarianism is matter of degrees. That someone either wants more or less government.
The problem is that the term lessarchism focuses on the quantity of statism and ignores the quality of statism. That is, the specific issues on which the lessarchist wants less statism.
One lessarchist might support the war on drugs, but want a reduction in the sales tax.
Another might want to increase military spending, but also support gay marriage and abortion rights.
You might have several lessarchists, all of whom support a net reduction in government (assuming you could comparatively measure such a thing), but on entirely different issues. Which is the critical question, because libertarians differ as to which issues are a priority to them.
I’ve noticed that Capozzi is very fond of the word lessarchist (and of plumbline), but lessarchist is not very informative in describing someone, not unless one specifies where that particular lessarchist wants less statism, where he’d leave the level of statism as is, and where he’d increase government.
Johnson might be a lessarchist on some issues that I regard as relatively trivial. But he supports “humanitarian wars,” so he’s no lessarchist on those issues — dismantling America’s military empire — that I consider paramount.
Indeed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSM7bvLiCHk&feature=youtu.be&t=17
I had a good conversation with Gary about labeling issues in person in 2013 or 14. He told me I convinced him, and pointed to that in later conversations with other people to tell them what a smart guy I am, but I heard him say the same stuff again later, so I’m not sure I really changed his mind, he may have just been blowing smoke up my ass.
I’ve seen him say he has no problem with labeling of some things for people who need to know out of legitimate medical need, and he often cites along those lines that he has Celiac and so can’t eat gluten, or diabetics who need to know how much sugar is in something, or somebody who needs to avoid allergens e.g. peanuts. From what he said it sounded like he mostly had in mind the sort of labeling of those things that we already have, and that he wouldn’t make a push of repealing that. I don’t that I agree I’d have those rules starting from scratch, but I agree I wouldn’t campaign on repealing them as some sort of urgent issue. He seemed less specific, or at least non-committal, on the topic of if GMOs fall into that category, in part because questioners never ask directly “Do you think GMOs are dangerous?” , they always couch it in transparency, “Do you support telling people what’s in their food?” etc.
It’s been a while, so I’m open to correction on that, but it’s my recollection of how I heard him answer the question once. Thankfully the “GMO labeling” craze has already peaked and passed and is on the decline, so it’ll be less of an issue (to the degree it was ever much of one) in 2016. Chipotle did a great job driving a nail in that coffin.
But now that I think of it, that’s a good topic to include on an LSN questionnaire to the candidates. If Johnson did say he supports GMO labeling, I have no problem saying I disagree with him on that. There are depressingly large number of libertarians who bought into that craze, because “right to know” and “labeling” sounds so harmless and unobjectionable, when of course it’s just an attempt to have the government force sellers of food to propagandize against their own products with junk science. The regulatory compliance and enforcement costs are also not trivial or minimal.
GMO labeling is akin not to labeling allergens or sugar content, but labeling something as kosher or halal. Which can be and is done without problem by voluntary associations in the private market.
I heard today (I heard this before and forgot) that he is in favour of mandatory GMO labeling.
“Overall, from all I’ve seen, his track record is strong from a lessarchist perspective. If you think otherwise”
I won’t know what I think until I do more digging. In 2012, I didn’t really bother looking at him beyond his current issues stands, etc. He was bad enough on those things, at that time for me to think it was really dumb for the LP to nominate him, but at the same time, since I wasn’t involved in the LP or working for a candidate at the time (other than very loosely advising the Wrights team, who ran an excellent campaign without much need for that advice), I had no reason to root into his past to find out whether or not he was also the Black Dahlia killer, an embezzler, a bad governor, etc.
This year, I guess I’ll have to give him the full colonoscopy.
tk: The first thing that pops up when I start looking is a big highway boondoggle that seems at a glance to have been primarily a clumsy instrument for forking as much New Mexico taxpayer money as humanly possible over to the Koch brothers.
me: First I’ve heard of this. The first article I found was riddled with untruths, so I discount what it says, and all the links I clicked ended in 404 hell.
I will say I’m sure GJ’s tenure as governor was imperfect. He was in the mix, and when in the mix, mistakes are made. Overall, from all I’ve seen, his track record is strong from a lessarchist perspective.
If you think otherwise, perhaps you should lay it out in a Knappster essay. I’m open to hearing the alternative. I’m definitely concerned about his handlers who seem to’ve filled his head with silly Sharia-phobia, if I’ve connected the dots somewhat accurately.
“To be fair, his campaign debts don’t negatively affect everyone in the US and their descendants. Little different.”
That’s true.
On the other hand, it’s reasonable to project future results from past performance.
When I was a kid, my town elected a mayor whose only real credentials were that he had owned and managed a prominent local store. Of course, he had inherited that store and then driven it into bankruptcy.
And he was exactly the kind of financial disaster one would expect as mayor based on that past performance. Large amounts of money just disappeared with zero account or accountability. Being mayor was a part-time job with an insignificant salary, so he got the city council to create the position of city manager with a real salary — then appointed himself to the position.
My first real piece of political journalism was an interview with the guy. A fellow high school newspaper reporter and I got an appointment with him to talk about an $X million bond issue he wanted to float to build a new sewage treatment plant. It was a high school news story because there was an argument over floating that bond issue at the same time the school district was doing one for a new building.
So we arrived at 8am to visit with the mayor. He sat there chain-smoking Belairs and sipping bourbon out of a Diet Coke can and giving us what even high schoolers could tell were bullshit non-answers while we asked him what had happened to the LAST $X million he had been handed to build a new sewage treatment plant with (that had been five years before, and the plant had never been built).
He got his bond issue, the school didn’t get its bond issue, the sewage treatment plant actually got built that time, and he remained mayor until he was too old, infirm and pickled by alcohol to go through the motions any more. After he retired (and died almost immediately thereafter) the city basically went into receivership when a state audit found many, many millions of dollars completely unaccounted for. My nephew dodged a bullet on that one. He had turned down the job of city manager, under pressure to accept it after working his way up through the city employee ranks starting as a lab guy at that new sewage treatment plant, because he knew damn well what was coming.
Johnson has proven in two presidential campaigns — his 2012 Republican primary campaign and his 2012 Libertarian general election campaign — that he can’t balance a fucking checkbook. Why should anyone believe he’ll suddenly learn how to if handed executive responsibility for a multi-trillion-dollar federal budget?
As far as his days as governor go, I’ve seen the campaign propaganda about all the great shit he did and how fiscally responsible he was, but I haven’t seen much by way of actual sober recounting to see if it matches the propaganda. The first thing that pops up when I start looking is a big highway boondoggle that seems at a glance to have been primarily a clumsy instrument for forking as much New Mexico taxpayer money as humanly possible over to the Koch brothers.
To be fair, his campaign debts don’t negatively affect everyone in the US and their descendants. Little different.
A-/B+
No obvious gaffes. Still could be more fluid and engaging.
Joe Wendt and did it again!
So, the man with a large campaign debt is lecturing people how to manage the national debt… give me a break. When he’s debt free, then he can talk about the National Debt.
He’s also making an unwise assumption. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio stand a good chance of being the GOP nominee, and Bernie Sanders could be the Dem nominee. He’s based his campaign of being the anti-Trump/Clinton without even publicly considering that that may not be the scenario come election day. He’s too shortsighted.