Gary Johnson for President

Whenever i see someone asked that i often hear his stances on weed brought up, not as the main reason anyone is voting for him obviously its just something that is usually noted. The best thing about it is in every single video i've ever seen of Gary Johnson he comes across incredibly stoned, he reminds me of what i looked like when i used to smoke it when i saw myself videod, nothing bad of course just always way more relaxed than you should be. I thought this back in 2012 when i watched the Repub Debates before i had any idea about his views on it. I don't believe he is actually stoned at all, and it has no relevance in any way. I just find something about it brilliant. It's art.

"What is a leppo?"

It's pretty much my favorite animal. It's kind of like a Leopard and a Hippo mixed, bred for its skills in magic!

Because I am a libertarian: I think that people should be free.

And that's the principle of the libertarian ideology (also called "liberal" in the world outside of the US).

While everybody says they would agree they do not actually believe people should be free. For instance, most people think that the government should force everybody into attending school, most people believe that the government must force people to pay for the healthcare of everybody else, most people think that the government must control what types of medications people should be allowed to take (such as FDA approval for medication to be released into the market), most people think that the government should force people into save for their retirement (because they are too stupid to do that for themselves).

Many people also think that the government should block immigrants from moving across border, or block firms into investing across borders or goods from moving across borders. That people cannot marry whoever they want, or that people should be able to consume the drugs they want to consume.

I disagree completely on all those respects: people should be free to consume whatever drugs they want to consume, people should be free to move to any country they want to move to (actually, economists estimated that there would be huge gains for the global economy if the whole world went completely open borders), people should be free to spend their money in the way they want to spend their money (even if they don't plan for their own retirement or if they choose to not have health insurance and live with the consequences of their choices).

By the way, the libertarian ideology is just a new name for the classical liberal ideology of thinkers like John Locke, David Hume and Adam Smith. They had to make up a new name because the word "liberal" became distorted over the course of time mainly due to the Cold War.

That's ridiculous.

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Personally I think that leaving people completely to their own devices is dangerous. I believe that in a lot of social issues people should have more freedom in terms of travelling, freedom in terms of some drug consumption (weed) and less punishment for others, but I think the idea of no Government intervention is irresponsible for the country as a whole.

People tend to only look after their own self interests and are very short term, information is unbalanced and imperfect so people will always make wrong choices and there will always be those at a disadvantage due to luck of circumstances. Merit goods, demerit good, public goods are all things that fail when left to the free market. Even if you want healthcare to be dealt with by the free market, what about environmental regulation? I don't understand how supporting one party or one side of the political spectrum instantly means you think there should be one attitude that fits all. Leave companies unregulated to do what the want and sort out the consequences afterwards, or put in fair regulation that benefits society in the long term and protects everyone. The past has allowed people to arrive at different positions and the free market does not make people free I believe, sides are either inherently disadvantaged or advantaged.

Why would a person pay for stuff like roads, hospitals he rarely uses, flood defences, the army, the police that he might rarely rely on and so on? People are not "stupid" because they fail to save money for themselves, I think that's insulting, it's just a natural tendency to think single minded and short term because of the way the current world is.

That's anarchy, not libertarianism.

All of which applies equally to government, which is made up of the same uninformed, self-interested people. Except it's worse, because it also self-selects for people who are uninformed, self-interested, and really ambitious.

Think like Friedman: compare market solutions not to some imagined ideal of government, but to its reality. To the actual individuals that end up inhabiting it, and the things that motivate them. The comparisons don't look so rosy then.

The part before the comma appears to have no logical relationship to the part after it. You say it doesn't leave people "free," and then as evidence cite something other than a description of how free they are. The assumption appears to be that "freedom" and "advantaged" or "homogeneous" are supposed to be synonyms.

Freedom does not guarantee outcome, only opportunity. Though it would win on the outcome metric, too, historically.

"But what about roads!" is a running joke in the libertarian community for the frequency with which people throw it out as a supposed counterargument. Again, libertarianism is not anarchy.

Suffice to say, people have a curiously hard time imagining how "the market" could do anything it hasn't had a chance to do, despite its myriad successes elsewhere. If the government had established a National Cellular Phone Plan a couple of decades ago I'm sure we'd be hearing about how we could never expect private companies to invest in their own satellites and absorb the associated startup costs just to bring us mobile phone service. And nobody would complain about the lack of smartphones or other advanced features, because they wouldn't miss the things they never imagined.

I'm not sure I see the distinction between saying it's "stupid" not to save, and then agreeing it's a bad idea but saying it's their "natural tendency." If anything, it might be more insulting to say that they're just at the whim of "the way the current world is."

Understood, I didn't mean literally no government intervention, but the minimal level, or the level in libertarianism, I still believe it's dangerous and doesn't work.

I'd like to think that the government are more informed on issues such as the environment, warfare, education, healthcare and so on. How is someone who has been brought up in a family stricken with poverty and drug addiction who have deliberately kept them away from school, meant to be informed and make a correct decision when it comes to what he should spend his money on. Okay maybe I am comparing it to an ideal government that does genuinely put the welfare of its citizens first, but I do believe that the current alternative to libertarianism, reality, has proven successful. Guap talks about not forcing people to send their children to school and letting people take whatever they want in terms of drugs.

To be, being at a disadvantaged would mean that you have less freedom than others. Free markets allow certain people, companies, powers to capitalise on wealth and power, control information and effectively control the people, ultimately restricting their true freedom in the sense that they have fair choice, information and opportunity.

How does it guarantee opportunity? I'd say it creates mass levels of inequality and as mentioned above creates a system where power can be easily exploited as there is no regulation stopping them.

What about the other things that I mentioned? Again going back to what Guapo talks about, sending children to school, stopping people taking harmful drugs. Roads is just a minor thing, but there are many sorts of goods and services that are either over, under or not provided to the detriment of society in free markets.

Free market is good for innovation and can be successful in a lot of areas, but again I repeat there are certain goods and services that I believe naturally are wrongly handled in the free market because suppliers and consumers only take into account actual cost/profit rather than the social benefits/detriment and the long term economic benefit/detriment. And I don't think its successes can be used for certain arguments like less regulation for the environment, legalising all kinds of medication, not making class room attendance compulsory etc.

I believe they will always be at a disadvantage because a lot of them will not have the perfect information available to them, they will make decisions on the imperfect information they have available to them which I think is understandable.

Except this is also true of politicians whose views you find intolerable, isn't it? So having more facts at one's disposal doesn't necessarily correlate with better decisions. And it's easy to figure out why: both because it's easy to pick and choose which facts to trust based on underlying philosophy, and because it's not a given that anyone (let alone the highly ambitious) are going to use their information for the greater good.

This is the contradiction that almost every advocate of increased government fails to notice: every argument they make against the market is really an argument against the nature of all people, which applies just as much, if not more, to the people in government they want to give more power to.

Except of course that lots of people are raised in horrendous circumstances and somehow manage to do just that.

It may not be as easy for everyone, but the distinction between "this is harder for some people" and "they have no responsibility to do it" is an important one.

The freedom to make a choice is not the same as the freedom to be insulated from the consequences of one's choices. If I use drugs, for example, I may severely reduce the actions I can freely take after that choice, but it would not be accurate to say I did not have those freedoms.

It is the intrinsic nature of choice that it precludes other outcomes. That's what choosing is. So what you're describing is not at odds with freedom, it is the inevitable result of free choices. If you find it unacceptable, then it isn't markets or libertarianism or deregulation that you find unacceptable: it is freedom itself.

The problem is with the phrase "effectively control the people." This takes a very dim view of humanity, as if they were cattle that could be herded on a whim, and feeds into what I just said about disliking freedom itself.

And again, try the political comparison: if companies can do this, why can't government? Can government "effectively control the people"? And if people are so damn easy to control, then what virtue is there in democracy?

Through competition, of course. Market-based societies invariably reward actions and talents that the bulk of society finds valuable, and is also staggeringly efficient at finding some value in nearly all levels of skill and talent.

Why do you think equality of opportunity would lead to equality of outcomes? Do you think people are identical/interchangeable? Do they have equal talents and make equally good choices? If not, then there's nothing in this assertion that is at odds with the idea of equal opportunity.

There's also the myriad assumptions contained in merely listing "inequality" as if it were self-evidently bad. But one thing at a time.

Please elaborate on what power is "easily exploited" and why it's beyond the abilities of most people to resist it. And then, for bonus points, explain why the political power which regulates it is magically free of the same potential for exploitation.

Please list some of them.

You say they "only take into account actual cost/profit" as if every business owner lived in the moment. I suppose this would be a reasonable guess, if we had no evidence either way. But we do, and we can plainly see that resources thrive when people have an economic stake in them. The plainest example is trees: there are more trees in the United States today than in 1900. Why? Because if we ran out, entire industries would collapse. Being sensible people, they consider the long-term and ensure that plenty of trees are planted as they cut down the existing ones.

You've heard of the tragedy of the commons, I take it? That tragedy comes not when too many people have a stake in something, but when too few do. Property incentivizes prudence: making spaces public is what disincentivizes it. Where is there more trash: a public park, or someone's backyard?

The fact that you use the word "perfect" is, I think, the whole problem. For one, nobody has anything close to perfect information. That's the same comparison to the ideal mentioned earlier.

The question is: who is generally best trusted with decisions? And the answer is almost always: those who have to live with the consequences.

Libertarianism does not say "people always make the right choices." Neither does democracy. Both say "people making their own choices, in the aggregate, is better than other people making those choices for them." The fact that abusive parents exist doesn't invalidate the belief that letting parents choose how to raise their children is almost always the best policy. Similarly, the fact that people make bad choices is not a justification for restricting everyone's choices.

The data doesn't support you thesis:

http://www.freetheworld.com/2016/eco...world-2016.pdf

Well, it's a very complicated subject and this forum is not the right place to debate it.

What do you think of Johnsons position on bakeries being forced to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple. And even going as far as saying that A Jewish baker should be forced by the government to bake nazi cakes.

How free is that?

Yeah, lost in the broader discussion about libertarianism is that Johnson isn't really much of a libertarian. And he seems to have become less of one as he's sensed an electoral opening in diluting his stance. Just pure opportunism, really.

Just out of curiosity, Guap: I know you've been living in the U.S. for awhile, but are you a citizen? If not, do you plan to become one? Pardon me if you said already and I missed it.

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Well, he is not a pure libertarian, but he is still libertarian because he is "socially liberal" and "fiscally conservative". And hence, he is not a "conservative" nor a "liberal" in the American political spectrum. Hence, a libertarian.

I don't know. It all depends on where my job takes me.

I should congratulate Yoda on the great posts on "political economy".

No ressponsore for my direct question, Guap?

hahahaha. He genuinely frightened her there!! OMG, Gary Johnson is like the underground, hipster, obscure version of Trump when he is ridiculously funny.

You are correct, although I make the assumption generally that the alternative to a libertarian party is one that uses at least some element of state control and aims to take at least some interest in the long term consequences of different decisions that a lone person may not.

Yes, they are arguments against the nature of people, and I believe that market's left to the people fail to take into account true costs of a lot of important things and are detrimental to society in a number of elements in a way that this has to be covered by state controls. Once again, you may be correct in that the nature is similar and the alternative is not perfect, but I'm also inclined to believe that they are more perfect and make better decisions than just leaving it to the free market.

Exceptions to the rule I think. Of course there are examples where people use the free market to create something great out of nothing. I do not think that free market, innovation, entrepreneurship and whatever should be banished at all. These things can still exist whilst the government also subsidises/gives support to to people less well off, can't they. Circumstance, determined by luck, I would say has an overwhelming influence on every decision a person will make in their life.

Don't you think that if the government was to invest more in public education, healthcare, training to help people who many would say are at a disadvantage, that overall there will be a benefit. It's a positive cycle whereby these people are better educated and end up contributing more to society, both socially and financially.

Yes, circumstances shouldn't be an excuse to absolve people of their own responsibilities, but often they don't understand their responsibilities or have things beyond their control preventing them.

Okay then, yes. It is "freedom" in this sense that I have the problem with. When left to the free market, or to have complete freedom, people make bad choices, often they only consider themselves, short term cost/gain, and there's a whole host of problems that I think occur, which then in turn hampers their freedom in the future.

I believe people make bad choices because of lack of understanding, because of circumstances which are beyond their control. Government intervening in their lives is also taking control away from them, but it offsets the disadvantage they're already at and gives them a chance of a more fairer life, where they are now more free to do a variety of different things, which would have become unavailable to them eventually in a free market because of forces that happens against them.

I think this fits in to what I said above.

Yes government can control the people and often there is an agenda but once again I take the view that government at least in principle should have the welfare of its citizens at its heart and should try and make decisions that it believes genuinely benefits everyone. Obviously, this doesn't happen in reality, perfectly, but I believe it's better than the alternative being no intervention at all.

And what do you mean what virtue is their in democracy? Even democracy is controlled, there are legislations and such in place in order to curb what decisions people can actually make. I'm not entirely sure what you are asking here, sorry, but I will see that people take advantage of democracy and are clever in ways so that they can cement their power and make it difficult for people to actually change things.

This can happen without libertarianism though, can't it?

So people should be massively rewarded whilst others suffer because they happened to be born talented or come up with a good idea? Seems like a harsh world to me. I think if people are given are supported to a point where they can realistically attempt to work or produce something, then they should not expect to live in poverty.

It's not immediately bad, or inherently or whatever. But I do believe that yes, inequality in that luck of circumstance, who you were born as and what life you are given, has such a huge impact on what happiness/opportunities/income you will get in your life, is a bad thing.


Once power is established, rules are then created to create barriers from others removing them from power. Whether we're talking about laws, or the creation of monopolies within business.

And they are normally free from exploitation, because they have exploited their power to set up ways of protecting themselves and consolidating their position.

If left to the free market why would people contribute to National defence, army, flood defences, fire services, police, wars which they may see no direct benefit. Over provided is stuff like harmful drugs, unprovided is education, healthcare

Again, there are positive examples of free markets and business leading to good decisions being made, but even in your own example it sounds like they've taken into account cost/profit with a decision that seemed fairly straightforward. I don't think this is always the case with stuff like pollution and tax avoidance even, they would rather save the money and deal with the consequences if they occur, not realising that they are hurting the economy/country in the process.

Surely this is an example of people not taking into account full cost/benefits/consequences of options. They litter because they are lazy, not realising that they are damaging the country and also possibly incurring costs for themselves in future when taxation is used to cover costs of cleaning. In their own property, they directly see, or notice, the benefit of their actions. So government regulation is needed, the government control effectively charges people to keep it clean, or they should.


True, although I've kind of addressed this throughout in that I think the alternative to libertarianism creates a society more fair and closer to what I would like.

But often people don't have to live with the consequences, or at least don't realise that they do. If I throw away a fag butt, what consequences are there for me, why should I care? The same with taking drugs, it's enjoyable, and I don't see any negative effects occurring to me, so why should I stop?

Trust the people who act as a collective and are elected because of their knowledge and whose job it is to protect the welfare of the citizens, and should in theory have more information than them, that's what I say.

My thought is more along the lines of, restrict people's ability to make bad choices, based on what we know generally leads to poorer quality of life, whilst continuing to allow people to make choices that research and past has shown to be of benefit and healthy to the economy and society.

‘I Guess I’m Having an Aleppo Moment’: Gary Johnson Can’t Name a Single Foreign Leader



It was, in Gary Johnson’s own words, another “Aleppo moment.”

During a town hall-style interview on MSNBC on Wednesday night, Mr. Johnson, the Libertarian candidate for president, was asked by the host Chris Matthews to name his favorite foreign leader.

Mr. Johnson, appearing flustered, was at a loss to come up with a name.

He grasped at a former president of Mexico, Vicente Fox, who has been critical of Donald J. Trump, but was unable to remember his name without help — or the name of any sitting leader of a foreign country.

“I guess I’m having an Aleppo moment,” he said.

Mr. Johnson was referring to a remarkably similar episode earlier this month when, during another interview on MSNBC, he was asked how he would deal with the continuing situation in Aleppo, the ravaged Syrian city at the center of that country’s refugee crisis.

“What is Aleppo?” Mr. Johnson said at the time.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/09/29...r&referer&_r=0