Jill Stein and Gary Johnson Debate Online Tonight 349
Starting at 7 p.m. EDT (4 p.m. PDT), the Green and Libertarian candidates for President are debating on the Independent Voter Network. You can catch it via a Google+ hangout or Youtube both live and afterward (no word on flashless user unfortunately, unless anyone knows how to access youtube live streams). Since the big two candidates got some time here on Slashdot, we figured you guys might want to argue amongst yourselves about the third party platforms too. Note that there will be another debate with more candidates on Tuesday.
Re:Really? (Score:3, Insightful)
There is only one political party that has been in charge of deleting rights for the last century; Repubmocrats. .8% incidental protein and .1% inert ingredients.
The Libertarians and Greens ARE honestly the REAL candidates along with other non-Repubmocrat offerings.
Repubmocrats are 99.1% plastic,
Leave First Post to the professionals.
Re:Really? (Score:2, Insightful)
How does that differ from what comes out of a Tea Partier's mouth?
Re:Really? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Really? (Score:0, Insightful)
The Tea Partiers hate the Libertarians because Libertarians believe in a small government that lets people do things that make them feel funny; while the Tea Partiers believe in a big government morality police, as long as they don't have to pay for it.
Also, Ayn Rand thought abortions were awesome. How else are you going to keep the untermensch from breeding, preach at them?
The only wasted vote, is a party line vote. (Score:5, Insightful)
Democrats and Republicans can reliably count on their party line votes, regardless of how they flip flop. That's why they focus more on the "independent" vote, come election time. The only way to influence the major parties anymore, is to show a significant uptick in the third party you most support. At the very least, you can affect the talking points of the next election.
Re:Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
I believe the precise explaination they give is "you dont need it". Im pretty certain Obama actually used those words ("they dont need it", in the context of taxation on the rich), and certainly ive seen that here on slashdot.
Who, precisely, was elected to determine how much I need, I still havent heard.
Re:The cardinals are playing tonight (Score:4, Insightful)
Now that you're old and stupid, you'll just keep making the same old mistakes. Gotcha.
Re:The cardinals are playing tonight (Score:4, Insightful)
Look, Republican, Democrat... whichever party of big government you support, that's all good. Pick team blue if that floats your boat. But after the 3.5 years this president has had, no sane person should ever even consider voting for this guy. Doesn't mean Romney should get your vote - particularly not if you are a died-in-the-wool team blue fan of the big state (as opposed to a died-in-the-wool team red fan of the big state). But by no possible measure has this guy earned a chance at your vote. In addition to bringing forward all of the worst of Bush - on the war, crony capitalism, the Patriot Act, warrantless wiretaps, deficit spending, gitmo, on and on -- he's brought it to a new level with the drone strikes, secret kill orders against american citizens, deportations of immigrants, raids on medical marijuana dispensaries, etc. Even his crowning achievement of "healthcare reform" is a dud whether you supported national healthcare or opposed it.
On top of all of that you've got the abysmal economy, shrinking workforce with high unemployment, huge monetary expansion.... Holy crap dude, how could you even think of voting for this guy!?!? Forget what he says, look at what he's actually done!
Listen to the weirdos in the Libertarian/Green Party debate and see if you don't find someone who you could actually support for a reason other than "Yeah! Go Team Blue!" If you are a progressive, Jill Stein represents your views way, way, way more than the candidate with a big "D" after his name. (in the interest of fairness, for you conservatives - take a look at Gary Johnson. He's way, way, way more of a constitutional conservative than your candidate with a big "R" after his name) But for god's sake, don't vote for the guy who's already proven that he's not up to the job.
Re:Really? (Score:3, Insightful)
"Who, precisely, was elected to determine how much I need, I still havent heard."
That has always been the problem. Who determines how much I need, and what the definition of 'need' is anyway, and who determines my ability. Who is more qualified than I am to make those decisions as they apply to me?
My argument is no one.
There is a lot to like in the Green platform, but they have a serious issue with "free" health care, education, and so on. There is no free. Some one has to pay for all the goodies, and they are being as cagey as Romney in not saying who is picking up the tab.
Re:Really? (Score:2, Insightful)
The state already defines marriage.
Oh? And what the fuck business is it of theirs?
Re:Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
everything out of the Libertarian's mouth boils down to "fuck you, I got mine"
What you've said has no connection to reality.
Plenty of libertarians are not financially wealthy (I am downright impoverished - by choice). Plenty of libertarians donate to charity. People who want to protect what's theirs from competition are likely to turn to government for help, which is how we get all those cronyist regulations. Libertarians believe that all people are equal in their negative Rights [wikipedia.org].
Everything out of a real libertarian's mouth boils down to "violence is wrong" [wikipedia.org], including violence by governments to buy loyalty of the mob with stolen loot!
--libman
Re:Really? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:She lost me (Score:5, Insightful)
Likewise, a certain amount of financial equality is good. Entrepreneurs and business owners can end up with quite a lot of money providing goods and services to the world. Individuals can inherit wealth and live on the interest its investment brings in. There is nothing at all wrong with this. However, when things go to an extreme they can have extreme consequences. Just like the rose bush, you need to keep things in balance in order for the economy to be healthy.
If you try to institute a soviet/communist style control and equalize everything, you crush a lot of the incentive to achieve in an honest way. The incentive to achieve through corrupt practices will flourish, however. I use Russia/USSR as an example. If you willfully go the other way and allow the few to obtain and control the vast majority of the wealth, you eventually end up with a lot of dead wealthy people and a river of blood in the streets. I can also use Russia/USSR as an example of this as well. Also France.
I'd kind of like to keep the rose bush alive and healthy without having to feed its roots with blood.
Re:Really? (Score:2, Insightful)
Libertarianism is just a slightly less honest version of anarchism. The political sentiments are pretty much the same and both are equally untenable, but the libertarians wrap theirs up with ideals about private property to pretend they aren't just a bunch of crazies.
Anyone who believes fundamentally that everything ought to be private falls into one of two categories. People who believe that when everything turns private they will be one of the people running the show and idiots who think that the first group of people won't be worse than any government which has ever existed.
Re:Gary Johnson is not really third party (Score:2, Insightful)
pro-choice
Citation needed...
pro-gay marriage
Ron Paul is most definitely not in favor of gay marriage. He wants the gov't to stop recognizing marriage entirely so that people don't get the married rate for taxation.
anti-religion in government
Ron Paul is building his own religious movement that is what he will install in government
anti-war
Ron Paul is not actually anti-war. He just opposes paying for war. A Ron Paul administration would not result in less war, just fewer wars fought by the US armed forces. Wars would instead by fought by conscripted employees of Lockheed-Martin, United Defense, and Coca-Cola against countries where they have economic interest. As corporations would have unlimited rights - and employees none - there would be no recourse against this.
Libertarians may be to the right of Republicans on fiscal issues
True
but they are to the left of Democrats on social issues
Not true. They see everything as a fiscal issue, and make every policy stance based on that.
There are some libertarian leaning Republicans, but the RNC showed us all exactly what the GOP thinks of that faction of their membership.
But in the end the vast majority of libertarians will join back with the GOP and vote for Romney because they can't stand to see another four years of Obama.
Re:Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
Medicare and Social Security are not in the Constitution at all. Yeah, people have paid in, but if you're not willing to ax it then you're not really for small government. Regardless of what marriage means historically there is no basis in the constitution for the Federal government to define it. Regardless of what drugs may do to someone there is no constitutional basis for controlling it. In fact, one has to wonder why prohibition of alcohol required a constitutional amendment but prohibition of drugs do not.
For all of your arguments, none address making the government smaller. The military, Medicare and Social Security are what make our government large. You can cut welfare, head start, school lunches, the interstate system, Nasa and whatever else you want but until you start talking about cutting the big three any rhetoric about small government is disingenuous.