Gary Johnson Announces Libertarian Party Run For President

The liberty movement is structurally marginalized in the US, be it inside the major parties, or in third parties. The elite special interests have engineered that result to cover their bases in either direction. They've done the same thing to marginalize the other alternatives as well. Result: liberty people fail electorally at winning in the minor parties, and liberty people fail legislatively at reversing a single aspect of the welfare-warfare state in the major parties. The failure is externally manufactured, not created by internal problems.

Or do you think every other third party also being stuck at 1-2% is just an accident, and that everybody in all those groups (across the nation, and across decades) are all equally incompetent? Our chances would improve if we stopped sniping at each other, and built a stronger grassroots movement, that was independent of major or minor parties.

No, you are absolutely right. The two major parties each have an appearance of liberty that they try to sell. The republicans profess to defend economic liberty, while the democrats profess to defend social liberty. Both of those, of course, are lies. But it helps to keep the populace in line. Those who are more concerned about social liberty cannot afford in their minds to split the dem vote, and vice versa.

That being said, there is always an opportunity shine a light on the ruse. However, you can't do that while your fighting yourselves.
 
Gary's policy prescription for abortion is exactly the same as Ron Pauls - devolve to the states. He just wraps it up in the verbiage of pro-choice (and who can blame him, the country is 70/30 on the issue).

I'm not sure if that's the case or not. He supported the Supreme Court decision which took power away from the states to decide the marriage issue. I don't see why his position would be any different on abortion.
 
You could elect 90% team red to the house and senate and give them the president and they still wouldn't change roe v. Wade.
See George W. Bush, 2003-05...he was too preoccupied with war to worry about the fate of unborn babies though.
 
I'm not sure if that's the case or not. He supported the Supreme Court decision which took power away from the states to decide the marriage issue. I don't see why his position would be any different on abortion.
Why not? He's a politician, after all ...
 


Rand took the high road. I don't know what Gary is thinking, I will never vote for him because of this kind of stupidity that comes from him, when he himself is far from a "pure" libertarian. I imagine I'm not the only one.
 
I criticize Rand all the time when I believe he missteps or is wrong on an issue, but as Ron said, Rand is his own man and he's a man who's our best chance at restoring liberty, at least to the Executive Branch. Gary Johnson just doesn't sit well with me and he hasn't for a while now. I find it funny though that he has the gall to start talking about libertarian chops. Too much nitpicking, as Rand said, just like on this forum.
 
The LP is a disaster party. I was a sad witness to this for over 20 years. The problem is that no one can quite agree on what a big "L" Libertarian should be. So much so that, ironically, that is their only unifying element. Each faction of the party quibbles about the .01% in which they find disagreement with the other factions that they can never agree. Hell, there are even major disagreements within those factions. It's a quadrennial circular firing squad.

Sadly, I think ANY party that is based around actual ideas instead of broad change-with-the-wind platitudes is doomed to such squabbling.
 
I am interested in hearing more from McAfee. He might be a far more entertaining president than Trump. Is McAfee against the Empire?
 
I am interested in hearing more from McAfee. He might be a far more entertaining president than Trump. Is McAfee against the Empire?

This is from the "Foreign Policy" section of the "issues" page at McAfee's official website (https://mcafee16.com/issues/):

We are not a police agency for the world. Our foreign involvements must be reigned in, and attention should be placed on looking at our own issues. While domestic policy will be the major focus of a McAfee administration, we will employ a foreign policy that augments our domestic policy.

First and foremost, we are to pursue our interests. This is the number one goal of a McAfee foreign policy. We reject the interventionist pursuit of idealistic and moral goals. Rather, we will focus on exerting out influence when and where it serves our national interests. Nothing more, nothing less. Nixon, in addressing congress in his first annual report on Foreign Policy states our goals quite clearly:

Our objective, in the first instance, is to support our interests over the long run with a sound foreign policy. The more that policy is based on a realistic view of our and others’ interests, the more effective our role in the world can be. We are not involved in the world because we have commitments; we have commitments because we are involved. Our interests must shape our commitments, rather than the other way around.​

Here's an excerpt from an article by Brian Doherty at Reason about McAfee (https://reason.com/blog/2015/12/28/anti-virus-pioneer-john-mcafee-enters-li):

His major issues stress more of what you might call the "nice" sides of libertarianism. You know, the aspects calling for government to stop doing things that most decent people consider crummy, from drug laws to non-defensive foreign interventions to TSA busybodyism to immigration laws to FDA regs that keep life-saving medicines from people's hands to privacy-violating surveillance. These are the parts that at least theoretically have some hope of creating possible coalitions with parts of the American left.

[...]

McAfee on his website issues page discusses policies that imply expanding government spending, such as, under "education," that "in the case of higher-education, we will work to make education attainable for everyone, regardless of income level or family income level. What’s more, the rampant student loan debt must be checked."

His "economy" plank also seems unlibertarian when it hypes:

a large-scale public works program. This will focus on a few key areas. Initially, these public works will focus on physical infrastructure: the construction and repair of roads, bridges, highways, airports, etc. These initiatives will be pursued through two different avenues. One, we will fund and staff these initiatives through various federal programs. Second, we will offer states, counties, and cities funds to manage the programs on their own. This initial infrastructure push will provide a, relatively, quick way to stem unemployment.

Further down the road, we plan to introduce an IT infrastructure development program. In short, we will make a large amount of funds available to cities and townships to prompt wholesale implementation of smart grid energy programs.

As we have stated many times over, we see access to broadband as a fundamental human right.​

McAfee is also a vocal supporter of "net neutrality" which most libertarian see as unwarranted government interference in the market's functioning.

[...]​

Here's a recent podcast interview with McAfee (I haven't listened to it, but the source I got it from said "he doesn't sound libertarian at all, at least not to me"):

LIBERTY HANGOUT PODCAST: Episode #10 w/John McAfee
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNk-qvjJUIE
Liberty Hangout (29 December 2015)

Yesterday, Liberty Hangout and Charles Peralo from BeingLibertarian.com had the privilege of being one of the first outlets to chat with tech mogul, security expert, and founder of a centi million dollar web security company, John McAfee, about his 2016 presidential campaign. We asked John about a number of his policy stances, ranging from intellectual property, to social security, free trade, Bitcoin, and more. John also unveiled his unique way of rolling back and eventually abolishing wasteful government agencies such as the TSA. This is an interview you will want to listen to from start to finish!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNk-qvjJUIE
 
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Gary will probably win too. And then the Libertarian Party will continue their streak of non-libertarian candidates for president.
 
Gary's policy prescription for abortion is exactly the same as Ron Pauls - devolve to the states. He just wraps it up in the verbiage of pro-choice (and who can blame him, the country is 70/30 on the issue).


Actually polls from the last few years are closer to 50/50.
 
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