Libertarian Presidential Debate

It's tough, but I can tell you who I wouldn't trust with the ticket....Gravel, Phillies, and Jingozian (though he does have a cool name :D)
 
It didn't seem like a debate. They all sat there and answered questions. That said, I don't see how you guys can criticize someone's "debate performance".

What is it you like about Ruwart
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She gave answers to questions - good questions at that. I can't say that for a lot of them. I want Ruwart nominated. But if Barr gets the nomination, I guess I'll support him.

That's what I saw....Ruwart seemed to be a little more pro-government.
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Examples?
 
WAR, who's your SEC pick of the week?

Besides that, he shone as, by far, the best motivational speaker....but the Libertarian Nomination isn't a self-help seminar. On the other hand, all the delegates who actually decided the candidates watched that debate. It might come back to them when the make up their mind tomorrow.

I don't expect WAR to get the nod, but it's more likely now than it was this morning.
 
Here is my answer for Knightskye

She mentioned taxes and fees? To me, that's more government control. You offer tax incentives rather than impose fees and more taxes. That's just me. I don't think she offered great answers and it made me second guess her as a viable candidate. I also don't buy the whole "troops to protect oil" speech. That too seemed like a strange statement considering she could have talked about the more pressing economic issues in connection with oil such as inflation. I don't have the debate recording at my fingertips but it's not difficult for me to recall some statements from her that struck me as odd. She also added a ton of unnecessary fluff into her statements...I just wasn't feeling it. For me it's like, "get to the point, be concise, confident, and show me you want this".
 
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Knightskye said:
She gave answers to questions - good questions at that. I can't say that for a lot of them. I want Ruwart nominated. But if Barr gets the nomination, I guess I'll support him.
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For me it was an expectations disappointment. I have always heard she was such a great speaker, etc. She didn't meet those expectations for me--but yes, that could have been an unfair standard.

Has she ever run anything or have any presidential experience?
 
alright im watching the national chairman debate...

but i missed the presidential candidate debate. anybody working on putting this on youtube??

much appreciated in advance.
 
The three people running for party chair seem a whole lot more articulate than most of the Presidential candidates...
 
Holes and Planes, Trains and (REALLY BIG) Buses.

Printo said:
This is just a step in the direction towards a NAU. With an open-border policy, you are undermining the sovereignty of the United States. Open borders are a step towards globalization. Open borders are a threat to our national security. After 9/11 we can't just allow people to walk in and out of this country whenever they want. If we want to prevent terrorism here at home, securing the borders is one of the first steps we should take.
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WOW. Really badly "reasoned" and so full of holes.... let's drive some BIG buses through them, shall we?


Printo: This is just a step in the direction towards a NAU.
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No it is not. But as this is an emotionally-based ASSERTION, designed to push people's hot buttons... well, we can just ignore it for now.

Printo: With an open-border policy, you are undermining the sovereignty of the United States.
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Bzzzt. Wrong on all counts.

To begin with the "sovereignty of the United States" has to do with legal jurisdiction matters, treaties, U.N. etc. overruling our Constitution and the laws of our land. So your collusion of the two issues is a full-blown logical non sequitor, and therefore irrelevant. (The only possible value in conflating the two issues is again an (erroneous) appeal to the "emotions" -- which is really just sad to see.)

As to the ACTUAL issue of an "open border policy," well, the United States had a virtually "open border" (i.e. no "quotas") for many years... literal HORDES of immigrants from countries with growing populations or political religious and economic unrest: England, Germany, Italy, Ireland, etc. All of this was quite BENEFICIAL to the country as a whole, and all of these populations were eventually "assimilated" in the "great melting pot" that was/is America. (The only "quotas" in place were typically racially based -- such as the race-bias against Chinese and Orientals in California during the 1800's).

If you want to identify the DIFFERENCES in the current situation, then you have to go to the ROOT of the current "lack" or "slowness" of the assimilation process -- namely the "multi-lingual" accommodations being unconstitutionally mandated upon the states by the Federal government, etc.

Other "so called" related issues like NAFTA are in fact part of the "sovereignty" issue, but not in the way that you are conflating them. (And FWIW, granting "Most favored nation" status to China did a LOT more harm to this country's industry than NAFTA ever did... but I digress.)

Printo: Open borders are a step towards globalization.
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Again nothing but an assertion, and another appeal to an "emotional" issue by conflating two things together.

Printo: Open borders are a threat to our national security. After 9/11 we can't just allow people to walk in and out of this country whenever they want. If we want to prevent terrorism here at home, securing the borders is one of the first steps we should take.
Click to expand...

Ah, now we come to the MEAT and the place we can drive some big buses (or even planes) through.

First and foremost, the "After 9/11 everything changed" is a worthless neocon invented bromide -- an appeal to an emotional desire for revenge and or the inherent "fear" of implying that THAT particular incident will somehow happen again.

So, let's begin with the FACT that ALL of the people purportedly involved in the 9/11 incident were in fact "legal" immigrants -- and none of them came from or even through any of the neighboring countries (no Mexicans or Canadians were involved). In actuality, they were here with the full awareness and knowledge of the various governmental entities, even having obtained prosaic things such as licenses, etc -- so additional governmental "scrutiny" or "regulations" would likely prove as worthless as those already in place prior to 9/11.

Also, regarding the entire "9/11" scenario -- the jig is up. That cannot and will not happen that way again. The only reason that it DID happen was that people were used to playing the game called "Hijack the Airplane to Cuba, sit tight and everyone lives." -- and the rules of that game were well known that TRULY, if everyone sat tight, everyone survived.

The ONLY thing that "9/11" actually changed "everything" about was that game -- passengers will no longer be compliant with it, because they now will automatically think they MIGHT be playing the NEW game of "Hijack & crash the plane into a building where everyone dies!". So the entire "show" of the whole TSA and the new game of "take your shoes off at the airport" and assorted BS is entirely unnecessary, and indeed is contraindicated. (How many people even TRY the "Hijack the Airplane to Cuba" game anymore? Answer, ZERO. And not because of TSA, but because you can't WIN that game anymore solely because the passengers will NOT cooperate.)


Printo: After 9/11 we can't just allow people to walk in and out of this country whenever they want.
Click to expand...

By this I am assuming you are also desiring to strongly restrict the movements of CITIZENS of the United States as well, as they too fall under your category of "people." You essentially want to build a "Berlin Wall" around the country for the EQUAL purposes of keeping ME (and other citizens) INSIDE as much as you are for keeping other people OUTSIDE (which might also include ME and other citizens as well).

Printo: If we want to prevent terrorism here at home, securing the borders is one of the first steps we should take.

This is just another weird conflation. Are you concerned with HOME-GROWN terrorists? Or do you mean terrorist strikes on American soil? (I will assume the latter as the former is illogical regarding immigration.)

But what you are asserting here is that "SECURING THE BORDERS" should be one of the "FIRST STEPS" that are taken.

Which, IMHO, shows that you have fallen for the standard political B.S. on this and that you really do NOT understand any of the ACTUAL CAUSES of terrorism. I would STRONGLY encourage you to read through the books on Ron Paul's "Rudy's Reading List" -- where you will find that, absent our MILITARY presence and our GOVERNMENT interference in the INTERNAL AFFAIRS -- most especially our MILITARY OCCUPATION of foreign lands -- the worst of the terrorists would be without any purpose in or incentive for executing terrorist attacks against the USA.

The work of Dr. Robert Pape and the VOLUMES of data that he has to back it up, are critical to understanding the WHY of terrorism, and therefore critical to understanding how to prevent it -- meaning what steps are the best ones to take FIRST.

Pape's Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (2005) controverts many widely held beliefs about suicide terrorism. Based on an analysis of every known case of suicide terrorism from 1980 to 2005 (315 attacks as part of 18 campaigns), he concludes that there is "little connection between suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism, or any one of the world’s religions... . Rather, what nearly all suicide terrorist attacks have in common is a specific secular and strategic goal: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland" (p. 4). "The taproot of suicide terrorism is nationalism," he argues; it is "an extreme strategy for national liberation" (pp. 79-80). Pape's work examines groups as diverse as the Basque ETA to the Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers. Pape also notably provides further evidence to a growing body of literature that finds that the majority of suicide terrorists do not come from impoverished background, but rather have middle class origins.​

And that emphatically means that the MOST IMPORTANT thing, the very FIRST STEPS to take to avoid additional terrorist attacks are all about ENDING the US "Empire" and our military occupation and presence in countries around the world.

After that it will very likely be completely UNNECESSARY to take ANY additional steps at all... and almost certainly as the last and least value of all, building a new "Berlin Wall" around the United States.

If you do NOT understand that... then you have NOT been listening to Ron Paul at all. Seriously.




P.S. Printo, you are definitely on your way to becoming an EXCELLENT demagogue. Have you decided to run for office yet? Clearly you have all of the instincts (and the ABSENCE of logic) necessary to be able to push the emotional buttons of the mob. And you swallow and regurgitate talking points in a very nice, succinct way, ignoring all true debate and reason. In short, a born political hack. (If on the other hand, you desire LIBERTY -- i.e. you want to be a REAL Ron Paul supporter {in more than name} -- then you need to do some more digging, learn more about the REAL issues, stop swallowing what the "TUBE" tells you, and engaging your thinking apparatus... start thinking before you regurgitate it all.)
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I'll smash down your current open border support in one quick swoop.

We can't do it now because we will become more broke than we already are. It's a fact. We need to fix what we have right now before we can have open borders. No more welfare state. I'm not against open borders, but it's not possible now as we have a welfare state. It's just not a very economical way of thinking. We need to fix ourselves and get this under control before we do something like that.

Once we get rid of this god-forsaken welfare state we are going to NEED the workers. Business thrives, their quality of living goes up, ours goes up, and it's a happy place...but that's shot to hell if you take tax payer money and give it away in all forms of unconstitutional programs.
 
JRegs85 said:
Alright.....I can't believe that Gravel just compared the judical system to "papists."

I was forced to go to church as a Catholic when I was younger, I haven't been to church in years. Take that for what it's worth. But really, comparing the terrible judical system to the Catholic organizational structure? Fuck you Gravel. If the mainstream media reported this debate, it would be a firestorm.
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When I heard him say that I assumed that I misheard. Gravel is far from a Libertarian but I didn't realize he was a closet nativist. I wish I could see transcript somewhere.
 
WRellim said:
WOW. Really badly "reasoned" and so full of holes.... let's drive some BIG buses through them, shall we?




No it is not. But as this is an emotionally-based ASSERTION, designed to push people's hot buttons... well, we can just ignore it for now.



Bzzzt. Wrong on all counts.

To begin with the "sovereignty of the United States" has to do with legal jurisdiction matters, treaties, U.N. etc. overruling our Constitution and the laws of our land. So your collusion of the two issues is a full-blown logical non sequitor, and therefore irrelevant. (The only possible value in conflating the two issues is again an (erroneous) appeal to the "emotions" -- which is really just sad to see.)

As to the ACTUAL issue of an "open border policy," well, the United States had a virtually "open border" (i.e. no "quotas") for many years... literal HORDES of immigrants from countries with growing populations or political religious and economic unrest: England, Germany, Italy, Ireland, etc. All of this was quite BENEFICIAL to the country as a whole, and all of these populations were eventually "assimilated" in the "great melting pot" that was/is America. (The only "quotas" in place were typically racially based -- such as the race-bias against Chinese and Orientals in California during the 1800's).

If you want to identify the DIFFERENCES in the current situation, then you have to go to the ROOT of the current "lack" or "slowness" of the assimilation process -- namely the "multi-lingual" accommodations being unconstitutionally mandated upon the states by the Federal government, etc.

Other "so called" related issues like NAFTA are in fact part of the "sovereignty" issue, but not in the way that you are conflating them. (And FWIW, granting "Most favored nation" status to China did a LOT more harm to this country's industry than NAFTA ever did... but I digress.)



Again nothing but an assertion, and another appeal to an "emotional" issue by conflating two things together.



Ah, now we come to the MEAT and the place we can drive some big buses (or even planes) through.

First and foremost, the "After 9/11 everything changed" is a worthless neocon invented bromide -- an appeal to an emotional desire for revenge and or the inherent "fear" of implying that THAT particular incident will somehow happen again.

So, let's begin with the FACT that ALL of the people purportedly involved in the 9/11 incident were in fact "legal" immigrants -- and none of them came from or even through any of the neighboring countries (no Mexicans or Canadians were involved). In actuality, they were here with the full awareness and knowledge of the various governmental entities, even having obtained prosaic things such as licenses, etc -- so additional governmental "scrutiny" or "regulations" would likely prove as worthless as those already in place prior to 9/11.

Also, regarding the entire "9/11" scenario -- the jig is up. That cannot and will not happen that way again. The only reason that it DID happen was that people were used to playing the game called "Hijack the Airplane to Cuba, sit tight and everyone lives." -- and the rules of that game were well known that TRULY, if everyone sat tight, everyone survived.

The ONLY thing that "9/11" actually changed "everything" about was that game -- passengers will no longer be compliant with it, because they now will automatically think they MIGHT be playing the NEW game of "Hijack & crash the plane into a building where everyone dies!". So the entire "show" of the whole TSA and the new game of "take your shoes off at the airport" and assorted BS is entirely unnecessary, and indeed is contraindicated. (How many people even TRY the "Hijack the Airplane to Cuba" game anymore? Answer, ZERO. And not because of TSA, but because you can't WIN that game anymore solely because the passengers will NOT cooperate.)




By this I am assuming you are also desiring to strongly restrict the movements of CITIZENS of the United States as well, as they too fall under your category of "people." You essentially want to build a "Berlin Wall" around the country for the EQUAL purposes of keeping ME (and other citizens) INSIDE as much as you are for keeping other people OUTSIDE (which might also include ME and other citizens as well).

Printo: If we want to prevent terrorism here at home, securing the borders is one of the first steps we should take.

This is just another weird conflation. Are you concerned with HOME-GROWN terrorists? Or do you mean terrorist strikes on American soil? (I will assume the latter as the former is illogical regarding immigration.)

But what you are asserting here is that "SECURING THE BORDERS" should be one of the "FIRST STEPS" that are taken.

Which, IMHO, shows that you have fallen for the standard political B.S. on this and that you really do NOT understand any of the ACTUAL CAUSES of terrorism. I would STRONGLY encourage you to read through the books on Ron Paul's "Rudy's Reading List" -- where you will find that, absent our MILITARY presence and our GOVERNMENT interference in the INTERNAL AFFAIRS -- most especially our MILITARY OCCUPATION of foreign lands -- the worst of the terrorists would be without any purpose in or incentive for executing terrorist attacks against the USA.

The work of Dr. Robert Pape and the VOLUMES of data that he has to back it up, are critical to understanding the WHY of terrorism, and therefore critical to understanding how to prevent it -- meaning what steps are the best ones to take FIRST.

Pape's Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (2005) controverts many widely held beliefs about suicide terrorism. Based on an analysis of every known case of suicide terrorism from 1980 to 2005 (315 attacks as part of 18 campaigns), he concludes that there is "little connection between suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism, or any one of the world’s religions... . Rather, what nearly all suicide terrorist attacks have in common is a specific secular and strategic goal: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland" (p. 4). "The taproot of suicide terrorism is nationalism," he argues; it is "an extreme strategy for national liberation" (pp. 79-80). Pape's work examines groups as diverse as the Basque ETA to the Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers. Pape also notably provides further evidence to a growing body of literature that finds that the majority of suicide terrorists do not come from impoverished background, but rather have middle class origins.​

And that emphatically means that the MOST IMPORTANT thing, the very FIRST STEPS to take to avoid additional terrorist attacks are all about ENDING the US "Empire" and our military occupation and presence in countries around the world.

After that it will very likely be completely UNNECESSARY to take ANY additional steps at all... and almost certainly as the last and least value of all, building a new "Berlin Wall" around the United States.

If you do NOT understand that... then you have NOT been listening to Ron Paul at all. Seriously.




P.S. Printo, you are definitely on your way to becoming an EXCELLENT demagogue. Have you decided to run for office yet? Clearly you have all of the instincts (and the ABSENCE of logic) necessary to be able to push the emotional buttons of the mob. And you swallow and regurgitate talking points in a very nice, succinct way, ignoring all true debate and reason. In short, a born political hack. (If on the other hand, you desire LIBERTY -- i.e. you want to be a REAL Ron Paul supporter {in more than name} -- then you need to do some more digging, learn more about the REAL issues, stop swallowing what the "TUBE" tells you, and engaging your thinking apparatus... start thinking before you regurgitate it all.)
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Please... Show some respect and stop speaking to me in a condescending tone like you are the authority on the issue or like I am some uneducated child.

So you are trying to tell me that NO terrorists EVER would come up with the idea to go to a country like Canada or Mexico and take advantage of our insecure borders and infiltrate the country?? I know why terrorism exists, geez, I am not a Neocon. Terrorism will exist as long as we have a belligerent foreign policy so we might as well protect our borders until we revise our foreign policy. You're right, terrorists probably aren't going to use planes again, so we should worry more so about our borders. Just because the 9/11 terrorists were legals doesn't mean we don't have to worry about illegals coming to America via our insecure borders. If 20 million illegals can sneak into America for seeking work, then you can bet terrorists can sneak into America with the intent to due harm.

Clearly, YOU have not been listening to Ron Paul at all. Paul has voted for a wall. Paul has expressed concerned for securing our borders. He voted for tipping off officials about illegals receiving hospital treatment.

And how is having a borderless nation not a step towards losing our sovereignty?? When an illegal alien can just walk into our country and take advantage of the American taxpayers and not have to pay taxes themselves, that is a HUGE violation of our country's sovereignty. It is extremely unfair to the American taxpayers to pay for the welfare of illegal aliens. Having no borders is a step towards merging America & Mexico. Americans are Mexicans and vice versa. We need borders.
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