Gary Johnson plans to run against Rand in 2016

[Christian Liberty]

I disagree with your conclusion/position but I can appriate the insight into your thinking nonetheless. And despite your firm position you seem to be aware that it's still a complicated issue.

To be honest, I don't consider my stance on abortion 'pro-choice' and I don't necessarily think that 'for legalized abortion = por-choice'. Pro-choice is usually framed as a 'woman's rights issue', but how many people that support a 'woman's right to choose' also support any individual's right to choose to do heroin or not to do a seatbelt? I don't think it's a adequately founded position.

Valid point. I remember having a conversation like that with my pro-choice high school english teacher (WRT: heroin use), she used the whole "pro-lifers don't believe in women's bodily freedom" argument, yet she didn't suppprt legalizing heroin. Hypocrite.

I just consider it a private property issue like any other (guns, etc). An unfertilized egg isn't a human (it's only half a human), a sperm isn't a human (only half) and a fertilized egg IS a human, but does not yet possess the cognitive properties necessary to be a person. Since people owner their body and its contents, people can remove any content they wish for aslong as they aren't innitiating force to a person by doing so. So for as long as the embryo/fetus (I'm crappy at details and forgot at what point they develop cognition) isn't yet a person, I don't consider it murder.

I would say personhood begins at conception, and thus that it is murder. And yes, that means it should be punished by death. Pro-lifers that reject this (Unless they are against the death penalty in general, and support the same penalty they would support for any other murder) are hypocrites.

That's the weird thing about this issue. ONLY extreme positions are logically consistent. Moderate positions are logically absurd. That's true for many issues. But especially this one.

 

[Jeremy]

I seriously don't understand why he would want to do that. What does he hope to achieve? Imagine if Rand lost by a slim margin. The LP would be hated by millions of libertarians across the country.

 

[muh_roads]

Oh Gary. Can't you run for Senate or something? You would be useful there.

 

[twomp]

They ran candidates in 2008 and 2012 against Ron Paul as well, when the latter was pretty much a gift-wrapped miracle from above to every libertarian-minded person following the elections. Yes, the Libertarian Party most assuredly is that stupid, not to mention selfishly invested in their own egos.

LOL!! In 2008, they ran against John McCain and Obama. In 2012, they ran against Mitt Romney and Obama. Seems to me you are pretty stupid yourself. Then again, most of the GOP rank and file are pretty damn stupid so you aren't alone.

 

[BuddyRey]

LOL!! In 2008, they ran against John McCain and Obama. In 2012, they ran against Mitt Romney and Obama. Seems to me you are pretty stupid yourself. Then again, most of the GOP rank and file are pretty damn stupid so you aren't alone.

The stupidness and selfishness I'm referring to isn't the fact that they went up against the 4 candidates of the two general elections you just mentioned (and, FYI, I voted for the Libertarian in both of those general elections), but rather their fumbling the ball by not urging their voters to register Republican and help Ron Paul cinch that GOP nomination. They could have co-nominated and helped to elect the first consciously libertarian President in U.S. history, but because he chose to run under a Republican banner, their pride was hurt, and they sacrificed their own self-interests just to spite him.

Your hasty assumption that I'm part of the "GOP rank and file" is not only unfair, but grossly inaccurate. Ron Paul is the first, and only Republican Presidential candidate I have ever voted for.

 

[Peace&Freedom]

The stupidness and selfishness I'm referring to isn't the fact that they went up against the 4 candidates of the two general elections you just mentioned (and, FYI, I voted for the Libertarian in both of those general elections), but rather their fumbling the ball by not urging their voters to register Republican and help Ron cinch that GOP nomination. They could have co-nominated and helped to elect the first consciously libertarian President in U.S. history, but because he chose to run under a Republican banner, their pride was hurt, and they sacrificed their own self-interests just to spite him.

Good grief, LP activists led the charge for Paul in getting his grassroots campaign going in 2007 (I speak as a then state LP Chair, who started one of the first 5 Ron Paul meetups in the country). I brought up the concept of cross-nomination (among other independent support for Paul) in a phone call with Lou Moore at the time, and he blew it off. It was the Paul campaign that did not pursue outreach to the LP or CP for the purposes of cross nomination. Nor did the campaign think such a strategy would work, so your issue is with Paul Inc, not the LP. The candidate has to approach the party and make the alliance a two-way street, and Paul did not do so, in two election cycles.

The issue is not party pride, it's the fact that a different party has the right to not be Republican-centric, which some people here fail to grasp. Paul did not approach the LP for help, despite the widespread help he got from LP members in both campaigns, and the LP is not an auxiliary of the GOP. The party does not exist to auto-nominate candidates who do not go to them to get nominated. The prideful faction here is the group that thinks the cult of Paul should trump everything else, and act like spoiled brats when other organizations do not unilaterally bow to it.

 

[puppetmaster]

He got about 1%. That would be enough to cost Rand the election in a close race. Rand's people are going to have to work with the Libertarian Party and convince them to nominate Rand.

the message of liberty is popular...even to the libertarian faction.

 

[Galileo Galilei]

My takes:

1) Johnson has gone idiot.

2) Johnson is less libertarian than Rand

3) JFK pardoned practically every federal drug prisoner in America.

4) Johnson didn't pardon any marijuana prisoners in New Mexico.

 

[Bastiat's The Law]

Gary is an ego case. F that guy!

 

[trumptarget]

haha.. gary john...

 

[LawnWake]

Cognitive properties is where you draw the line? So.....

Can I just kill a person in a coma? The whole point of being in a state of cognition is that you are self aware. People in a coma are not self aware. Chairs aren't self aware and so we don't care about using them to fuel a fire. I would suspect that consistency is something you value and your position doesn't seem consistent with a civilized society (we don't murder coma patients). Would you like to move the goalposts?

A person in a coma hasn't necessarily lost their cognitive abilities, they're just unconscious. They're about as self aware as you are when you're sleeping. They can awaken from a coma and be a person. A vegetable has, and in cases of vegetables I think it turns into a private property issue of their legal guardian.

 

[unknown]

He got about 1%. That would be enough to cost Rand the election in a close race. Rand's people are going to have to work with the Libertarian Party and convince them to nominate Rand.

^ this.

 

[JohnM]

It's true that Johnson getting 1% could be a real problem for Rand. But it's highly unlikely that Johnson would get 1% if Rand were the GOP nominee. It would probably be closer to 0.3% this time, as most (or least half) of those who voted for Johnson in 2012 would probably vote for Rand.

Indeed. I voted for Gary Johnson in 2012 but with very little enthusiasm.

There are things about Rand that I am not very happy about, but given a choice of Rand and Gary, I'd vote for Rand.

Indeed, I would be pretty tempted to vote for Rand even if Gary Johnson was the Republican Party candidate and had a real chance of winning, and Rand was the LP candidate and had no choice at all.

 

[Maltheus]

Between the two, I wouldn't consider Gary unless Rand Paul did something incredibly stupid like ask Jesse Benton to play a role in his campaign. If that happens, I'm not wasting another summer trying to get a Paul nominated only to have him bow out to his opponents before the conventions are even done.

2016 is "Go hard or GTFO" as far as I'm concerned.

Same here. Gary is alright, but he's not libertarian enough to be idealistic over, so I'd rather go with the guy who does actually have a shot at working the system.

Although, I still think the movement is better off with Rand in the Senate.

 

[Vanguard101]

I'm 100 percent sure that the ancaps that do not vote, will support Rand. There are more of them than retards voting for the LP imo

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Count Dooku is running? big surprise

 

[CaptainAmerica]

I seriously don't understand why he would want to do that. What does he hope to achieve? Imagine if Rand lost by a slim margin. The LP would be hated by millions of libertarians across the country.

Gary Johnson needs to sell his name because he probably has no other job, plus he was there to make Ron Paul look like a fringe, thats what his goal seems to be again...im sure someones paying him behind closed doors to try to take a chunk of voters away from the libertarian message

 

[H. E. Panqui]

As a long-time Libertarian Party member I'm pretty sure I will support Bill Still in 2016 for the LP nomination. It's about time a monetary REALIST is heard..The Republicrat monetary THEORISTS like Rand Paul, Gary Johnson, etc. Republicrats ad nauseam, have always COMPLETELY dominated the microphones....working their popcorn holes about illion$ absent an honest understanding of the hideous origin and nature of even one!..

I could see myself maybe supporting Jesse Ventura too..but no more stinking Republicans and Democrats for me...ever...(i violated that oath for Ron Paul but NO WAY for Rand..)

 

[cajuncocoa]

Good grief, LP activists led the charge for Paul in getting his grassroots campaign going in 2007 (I speak as a then state LP Chair, who started one of the first 5 Ron Paul meetups in the country). I brought up the concept of cross-nomination (among other independent support for Paul) in a phone call with Lou Moore at the time, and he blew it off. It was the Paul campaign that did not pursue outreach to the LP or CP for the purposes of cross nomination. Nor did the campaign think such a strategy would work, so your issue is with Paul Inc, not the LP. The candidate has to approach the party and make the alliance a two-way street, and Paul did not do so, in two election cycles.

The issue is not party pride, it's the fact that a different party has the right to not be Republican-centric, which some people here fail to grasp. Paul did not approach the LP for help, despite the widespread help he got from LP members in both campaigns, and the LP is not an auxiliary of the GOP. The party does not exist to auto-nominate candidates who do not go to them to get nominated. The prideful faction here is the group that thinks the cult of Paul should trump everything else, and act like spoiled brats when other organizations do not unilaterally bow to it.

I owe you another +rep

 

[CaptUSA]

The party does not exist to auto-nominate candidates who do not go to them to get nominated.

I'm actually trying to figure why it does exist. It certainly isn't to win elections. I was an active member of the LP for over 20 years with the naïve belief that if we could get the message out, we could start winning. After all, the libertarian message seemed to align with the winning side of nearly every issue in poll after poll.

The problem with the LP, (and it rears its head in these forums as well), is that there are so many factions that continually fight each other over who is rightly entitled to hold the helm of the ideology. It's a circular firing squad. I became finally became disillusioned after discovering that the party is not really about trying to restore liberty, but more about a fighting ground for contrarians. I hope one day they'll be something different, but I haven't seen any evidence of that as of yet.