Maybe Gary Johnson is more libertarian than he sounds.

JohnM said:
I agree with the OP. As undergroundrr has pointed out on several occasions, Johnson is not not aiming his campaign at libertarians, but at moderates - particularly socially liberal moderates.
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In doing so, he has basically convinced a lot of libertarians not to vote for him.
 
Madison320 said:
I think most everyone here agrees that Gary Johnson is far from a pure libertarian. But it bothers me when people trash Johnson and then support Trump as if Trump is more libertarian than Johnson. I'm quite sure that Johnson is more libertarian than Trump and it's not even close.
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Indeed

I think there's a crucial difference between the things Gary Johnson is saying and the things Trump or just about any Republican is saying. I think Johnson, in an attempt to get votes, is trying to sound LESS libertarian than he is in reality, compared to typical republicans who try to sound MORE libertarian than they really are.
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I think that's likely true, though - even so - Gary isn't a pure libertarian in the Rothbardian mold.

But he's more than close enough for all practical purposes.

So my point is that on the "Election Speech Libertarian Scale" Gary Johnson might be a 6 and Trump might be a 4, but in REALITY it's more like Johnson is an 8 and Trump is a 2.
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I'd say Gary sounds like an 8 and is actually an 8.5.

Trump sounds like a 0 and is actually a 0.
 
"The reason so many of us prefer Trump is because his specific positions on Foreign Policy"

:rolleyes:

...ah yes, drumpf, who wants to 'bomb the sh!t out of them' really distinguished himself during the primaries against cruz, who wants to 'bomb them until the sand glows in the dark'...

...i think you trump boneheads are going to find out that a whole lot of people supported your stinking drumpf during the republican primary ONLY because they wanted to saddle the stinking republicans with an embarrassing buffoon..oh yeah...;)
 
Madison320 said:
I think I remember the Constitution Party making all sorts of silly excuses as to why alcohol should be legal but other drugs illegal and why prohibiting alcohol requires an amendment but prohibiting other drugs does not.
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I don't think the CP has ever supported federal prohibition, only state by state, and then providing that said states choose to do that.
 
People act like the minute the next President is inaugurated that the platform becomes law. Not the way it is. The system includes the brain trust that is Congress. You can pretty much figure out that the war on drugs won't be going away, and they will fight any kind of border security tooth and nail. A president drives an agenda, but he can only drive it so far. Congress is going to keep on its same path to destruction unless we send a very clear message to them that we aren't having it.
 
euphemia said:
People act like the minute the next President is inaugurated that the platform becomes law. Not the way it is. The system includes the brain trust that is Congress. You can pretty much figure out that the war on drugs won't be going away, and they will fight any kind of border security tooth and nail. A president drives an agenda, but he can only drive it so far. Congress is going to keep on its same path to destruction unless we send a very clear message to them that we aren't having it.
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Actually, a President could accomplish the majority of my agenda with or without Congress.

First, a President is obligated to only execute those laws which he believes are Constitutional. That's like 75% of my agenda right there.

Second, you only need an Act of Congress to eliminate a Department permanently. If Super-Libertarian got elected tomorrow, he could shutter the Department of Education without Congressional approval, with the caveat that if he never gets a COngressional signoff the next President could start it up again.

The vast majority of what I want, does not actually require the consent of Congress in the near term.
 
euphemia said:
I think Darrell Castle would definitely that.
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Darrell Castle is great. But unless some elaborate game plan is about to kick in, he doesn't even consider himself a viable candidate.

Johnson isn't likely to win the election either, but if he did, he's kind of famous for his "750" (really 739) vetoes. We already know he wants to abolish the Department of Education and HUD.
 
whats bothers me is that WE here at RPFs have a huge grassroots group, but we as a group arent doing anything to help push a third party at all. libertarian or not, johnson is our only real shot a t taking a stab at the system thats always worked against this country. i am ashamed as a libertarian that WE as a group cannot get together to at least push this third option vs the establishment.
 
Johnson is just "libertarianish" on issues such as free markets, guns and drugs and is trying to make himself more mainstream for votes, but he truly doesn't understand liberty. This has become increasingly apparent to me. Johnson doesn't understand that liberty is making your own choices and enjoying the success of the good ones and accepting the consequences of the bad ones. Take his stance on discrimination for instance. Johnson understands you don't ban alcohol because some ten thousand people will be killed by drunk drivers annually, yet he doesn't allow people to choose who to serve because of the chance someone will be hurt a lot less severely and a lot less frequently than by drunk driving. In fact, the bad choice one has to deal with would be the business owner discriminating. He'd have to deal with all of the customers he hurts. Johnson just doesn't understand this and doesn't understand liberty. Maybe I'm wrong and he thinks supporting bans on discrimination makes him much more palatable, but I really doubt it. I think Johnson really believes immigration must not be allowed to happen. Of course, false discrimination suits hurt people a lot more than actual discrimination does. It's a shame, I like Gary too, but he can be a brickwall on issues like this and it's so important because it goes to the core issue of liberty. People making their own choices provided they don't use force or fraud, whether you like those choices or not.
 
I will say that I do think there's one way that Johnson is more libertarian than he lets on - drugs. I'm not talking about marijuana, either. Johnson won't openly support legalizing hard drugs, but I've seen him basically make the case for it as far back as when he was making the rounds after first coming out in favor of marijuana as well as this year. He'll cite how heroin legalization worked in Zurich or make a similar case, but I do think purposely avoids endorsing outright legalization. That might be the one libertarian issue that scares people the most, which is incredibly stupid, but it's modern politics for ya. Similarly, I'm pretty sure he supports legalizing prostitution, but plays that down and avoided answering whether he supports polygamy, except to say(correctly) that it should be a state issue.

His real problem is how he complete loses it on discrimination. Immigration is debatable among libertarians, although I personally see no reason to encourage it at this moment.
 
I absolutely agree that Trump and Clinton are the utter shits and I would never vote for either, but what makes Gary/Weld much better than your average Democrat or Republican politician? If you add up what Gary/Weld have been saying during the 2016 election, I come away thinking that Gary is a social justice warrior with a handful of slightly libertarian positions. What frightens me about Gary is that nothing with him has any sort of foundation and nothing is set in stone. Look at how he has kind of "hee-hawed" around on gun rights and equal pay nonsense. I'm not going to sit here and crap on anything or anybody that doesn't fit my "purist" view of what libertarianism is, but you got to get the fundamentals right and you have to have some sort of foundation that is based on individual liberty. I just don't see Gary as having any sort of foundations at all.

Unfortunately, I think a President Johnson or a Johnson that gets into the debates may actually set liberty and libertarians back quite a bit.
 
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Gunny...

the Senate trial of Andrew Johnson vindicated his firing of Edwin Stanton, but the ability to impeach exists, we know it is his pardons in a big way
of "southerners" who had fought for the Confederacy that set off various factions in Congress, and the way the election of 1866 turned out. All i can
say is "Gunny... good luck!!!" and this is as i know that the way FDR did LEND/LEASE almost got him in proverbial hot water due to his POTUS level
powers and authority at the time. Sometimes ambition is not a bad thing, and being blunt is a pleasure and not a curse. Be quite cautious at times!
 
GunnyFreedom said:
Actually, a President could accomplish the majority of my agenda with or without Congress.

First, a President is obligated to only execute those laws which he believes are Constitutional. That's like 75% of my agenda right there.

Second, you only need an Act of Congress to eliminate a Department permanently. If Super-Libertarian got elected tomorrow, he could shutter the Department of Education without Congressional approval, with the caveat that if he never gets a COngressional signoff the next President could start it up again.

The vast majority of what I want, does not actually require the consent of Congress in the near term.
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Gunny. Excellent point!
 
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