The Case for Gary Johnson

[Adam White]

Holy hell there's so much wrong with finehoes post I'm not even going to touch it.

I'll say this to the Clinton/Trump zombies on this board: if you like the direction of the country, keep voting the same.
If you like how our current country is treating minorities, even with a black president, keep voting the same.
If you like the countless wars that Clinton will bring, keep voting the same.
If you like the idea of the country being more divided as Trump is doing, keep voting the same way.
If you like the war on drugs, which will continue with both Clinton and Trump, keep voting the same way.
And of course, if you like the deficit doubling each presidency, R or D, keep voting the same way.

I'll be voting my conscious.

There's a difference between not voting the same and voting for a "libertarian" though. It's an alternative, but not necessarily any better of an option.

[coredumped]

Better is subjective. My point is that Republicans and Democrats haven't and won't change a thing.
Remember when Democrats were anti-war? Me neither. Remember when Republicans were for smaller government? Not in my life time.

They're basically the same party now.

[Adam White]

Better is subjective. My point is that Republicans and Democrats haven't and won't change a thing.
Remember when Democrats were anti-war? Me neither. Remember when Republicans were for smaller government? Not in my life time.

They're basically the same party now.

That's a cherry-picked list, though. If you exclude all sorts of stuff, they can look like the same party. In that sense, the libertarians are the same as the Democrats and Republicans.

[coredumped]

I agree it's a cherry picked list, but what do the Democrats and Republicans stand for anymore?
Neither party upholds the party's mission statement. I believe the Republican party won't even be around in 20 years. It'll fall apart (as it has been) and what's left of it will merge with the Democratic party.

[AKIRA]

The plan is to replace potential tyranny from the State for probable tyranny from the business sector (para. Chomsky)...  At least in the libertarian way, the population will have enough Soma (weed, etc.) not to care so much... gotta keep those Epsilon-minuses pounding away...

[Kiva]

Holy hell there's so much wrong with finehoes post I'm not even going to touch it.

I'll say this to the Clinton/Trump zombies on this board: if you like the direction of the country, keep voting the same.
If you like the countless wars that Clinton will bring, keep voting the same.
I'll be voting my conscious.

And you think that Trump, with his short temper and bombastic talk will not start wars?

[avonjax]

Positions Johnson either holds or has held on nearly 20 key issues:

    * He supports TPP.
    * He supports fracking.
    * He opposes any federal policies that would make college more affordable or reduce student debt. In fact, he wants to abolish student loans entirely.
    * He thinks Citizens United is great.
    * He doesn't want to raise the minimum wage. At all.
    * He favors a balanced-budget amendment and has previously suggested that he would slash federal spending 43 percent in order to balance the budget. This would require massive cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and social welfare programs of all kinds.
    * He opposes net neutrality.
    * He wants to increase the Social Security retirement age to 75 and he's open to privatization.
    * He opposes any kind of national health care and wants to repeal Obamacare.
    * He opposes practically all forms of gun control.
    * He opposes any kind of paid maternity or medical leave.
    * He supported the Keystone XL pipeline.
    * He opposes any government action to address climate change.
    * He wants to cut the corporate tax rate to zero.
    * He appears to believe that we should reduce financial regulation. All we need to do is allow big banks to fail and everything will be OK.
    * He wants to remove the Fed's mandate to maximize employment and has spoken favorably of returning to the gold standard.
    * He wants to block-grant Medicare and turn it over to the states.
    * He wants to repeal the 16th Amendment and eliminate the income tax, the payroll tax, and the estate tax. He would replace it with a 28 percent FairTax that exempts the poor. This is equivalent to a 39 percent sales tax, and it would almost certainly represent a large tax cut for the rich.

Also of paramount interest to young voters, elsewhere at Mother Jones, site manager Jeremy Schulman posted a clip from 2011 (viewable at the link) in which Johnson told attendees of a National Press Club luncheon that climate change, though real and "man-caused," "is completely inconsequential to the money that we would end up spending."

"Should we take the long-term view when it comes to global warming?" Johnson asked. "I think that we should, and the long-term view is that in billions of years the sun is going to actually grow and encompass the Earth, right? So global warming is in our future."

Schulman writes that "Johnson's 2011 comments weren't an aberration":

    Over the past few years, he has spoken out repeatedly against environmental regulation. In a 2011 NPR interview, he instead called for a "free-market approach" to reducing carbon emissions, arguing that consumer demand for cleaner energy, coupled with cheap natural gas, was causing a shift away from coal. He made the same argument during a Libertarian presidential candidate debate in May 2012. "If government gets involved" in fighting climate change, he said, "we are going to be spending trillions of dollars and have no effect whatsoever on the desired outcome."

    During his 2012 campaign, Johnson called for cutting federal spending by 43 percent. In one interview, he noted that this would also mean a 43 percent reduction in the Environmental Protection Agency's budget. (During that same interview, he repeated his statement about the sun eventually destroying the planet: "Long-term consequence of our existence in the whole scheme of things is the sun is getting closer to the Earth and that at a point in the very distant future, the sun will actually encompass the Earth. So global warming is something that's going to be inevitable.")

In July, during the current election season, Johnson briefly flirted with the idea of a carbon tax after answering "No," in an appearance on Real Time With Bill Maher, to the question of whether he had a "comprehensive plan to combat climate change."

    But then Johnson's stance changed dramatically. In an August interview with the Los Angeles Times, he announced he was "open" to the idea of the federal government imposing a revenue-neutral tax on carbon emissions. Economists have long viewed a carbon tax as the most efficient way of putting a price on greenhouse gas emissions in an effort to limit warming—many see it as preferable to the complex cap-and-trade proposal backed by President Barack Obama during his first term. In a subsequent interview on CNBC, Johnson called a carbon tax a "very libertarian proposal" under which "the market will take care of" climate change. (During the Democratic primaries, Bernie Sanders endorsed a carbon tax; Clinton did not.)

    Many Libertarians and conservatives were outraged by Johnson's sudden embrace of a carbon tax. "It's Official: Gary Johnson Is a Left-Wing Candidate," declared the Federalist, a conservative publication. After plenty of public criticism from the right, Johnson changed his mind, telling supporters at a New Hampshire rally that after considering a carbon tax, "I have determined that, you know what, it's a great theory, but I don't think it can work, and I've worked my way through that." His flip-flop drew loud applause from the crowd.

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/hey_millennials_heres_what_gary_johnson_believes_video_20160923

It's too bad that coredumped knows nothing about Gary Johnson....
This is the Libertarian way.....
I'm going to say it.....You would have to be an idiot to vote for Johnson......
Oh, and by the way this post by finehoe is very accurate so I don't know what rock coredumped has been living under....
Just saying......
But if I'm wrong please show me your facts.....or can you touch that?

[JHAT76]

But what if I agree with some of these ideas?  Or at least agree somewhere along the spectrum of these ideas?  Does that make me crazy?  Maybe Johnson supporters are attempting to explore new ways of thinking about issues and solutions.  Do something other than stick to Dem or Rep dogma.

To the comment about Johnson believing "...consumer demand for cleaner energy, coupled with cheap natural gas, was causing a shift away from coal. "  This is an accurate statement than can be shown in the last few years as nat gas has been relatively cheap and we have seen fuel switching from coal to nat gas for production of electricity.

Also, I would love to see Finehoe's or your analysis of TPP.  All 5500+ pages of it.  Please provide your personal opinions and not simply link a Krugman article.  I say this because while there are things to question about TPP, most people waving the "I'm against TPP" flag aren't in tune with the details.

[finehoe]

...most people waving the "I'm against TPP" flag aren't in tune with the details.

I'm sure I'm as attuned to the details as you are.  My main problem with the TPP is it lets foreign corporations bypass U.S. law. The current TPP text allows multinational companies to challenge U.S. laws, regulations and safeguards through a provision called investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS), a private justice system that undermines our democracy. Through ISDS, foreign investors can seek compensation from the United States for enforcing regulations and safeguards designed to protect America's working families. In fact, multinational companies currently are using ISDS to attack democratic policies and laws in Australia, Canada, Peru and Uruguay, among many others.

http://www.citizen.org/investorcases

[JHAT76]

ISDS provisions have been in numerous deals.  I don't think there has been an ISDS dispute that has resulted in an large amount against the US.

[Adam White]

Also, I would love to see Finehoe's or your analysis of TPP.  All 5500+ pages of it.  Please provide your personal opinions and not simply link a Krugman article.  I say this because while there are things to question about TPP, most people waving the "I'm against TPP" flag aren't in tune with the details.

So, let's hear your analysis of TPP - all 5500+ pages of it. And not a link to an article. Because presumably, if you support it, you must've read and digested the entire thing (not like us mortals who rely on third party analysis).

[finehoe]

ISDS provisions have been in numerous deals.  I don't think there has been an ISDS dispute that has resulted in an large amount against the US.

The U.S. has dodged ISDS liability to date because past treaties have only covered a limited number of investors here.

If an ISDS tribunal rules against a challenged policy, there is no limit to the amount of taxpayer money it can order the government to pay the multinational corporation. The amount is based on the "expected future profits" the tribunal surmises that the corporation would have earned in the absence of the public policy it is attacking. Under existing U.S. pacts, tribunals have ordered nearly $3 billion in taxpayer compensation to multinational firms , and more than $70 billion is pending.

The TPP allows such lawyers to rotate between serving as "judges" and bringing cases for corporations against governments – a conflict of interest that would be deemed unethical under most legal systems. These "tribunalists," as they are formally called, are not bound by precedent or the opinions of governments, and there is no outside appeal to their rulings. If that were not sufficiently outrageous, the TPP special protections for multinational corporations also incentivize more job offshoring. The new corporate rights and powers would eliminate many of the usual costs and risks that make firms think twice about moving to low-wage countries, literally promoting corporations to launch a new wave of job offshoring

While this shadow legal system for multinational corporations has been around since the 1950s, just 50 known cases were launched in the regime's first three decades combined. In contrast, corporations have launched approximately 50 claims in each of the last four years.

Instead of decreasing our exposure to this surge of corporate attacks, the TPP would roughly double U.S. exposure to investor-state attacks against U.S. policies. The TPP would newly empower more than 1,000 additional corporations in TPP countries, which own more than 9,200 additional subsidiaries in the United States, to launch investor-state cases against the U.S. government.

[JHAT76]

Also, I would love to see Finehoe's or your analysis of TPP.  All 5500+ pages of it.  Please provide your personal opinions and not simply link a Krugman article.  I say this because while there are things to question about TPP, most people waving the "I'm against TPP" flag aren't in tune with the details.

So, let's hear your analysis of TPP - all 5500+ pages of it. And not a link to an article. Because presumably, if you support it, you must've read and digested the entire thing (not like us mortals who rely on third party analysis).

I never said whether I support it or not.  I don't mind taking a pragmatic course and really vetting this trade deal.  I also feel it was pushed on the country and a lot of it done in secret.  So I appreciate Clinton's more cautious approach.  With that said, I find it interesting that most people will follow only the analysis that leads them to their predetermined desired outcome.  Thus I said no Paul Krugman.  Finehoe instead linked to a (let's be honest) left leaning website.  Public Citizen was originally Ralph Nader correct?

[finehoe]

Finehoe instead linked to a (let's be honest) left leaning website.  Public Citizen was originally Ralph Nader correct?

And?  What is factually incorrect in my post?

[Adam White]

Also, I would love to see Finehoe's or your analysis of TPP.  All 5500+ pages of it.  Please provide your personal opinions and not simply link a Krugman article.  I say this because while there are things to question about TPP, most people waving the "I'm against TPP" flag aren't in tune with the details.

So, let's hear your analysis of TPP - all 5500+ pages of it. And not a link to an article. Because presumably, if you support it, you must've read and digested the entire thing (not like us mortals who rely on third party analysis).

I never said whether I support it or not.  I don't mind taking a pragmatic course and really vetting this trade deal.  I also feel it was pushed on the country and a lot of it done in secret.  So I appreciate Clinton's more cautious approach.  With that said, I find it interesting that most people will follow only the analysis that leads them to their predetermined desired outcome.  Thus I said no Paul Krugman.  Finehoe instead linked to a (let's be honest) left leaning website.  Public Citizen was originally Ralph Nader correct?

This statement implies that a) you support it and b) that people who don't support it are the only ones who haven't read it:

I say this because while there are things to question about TPP, most people waving the "I'm against TPP" flag aren't in tune with the details.

It goes to figure that most people - overwhelmingly - haven't read the thing, regardless of whether they support it or not.