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Politics

Interviews: John McAfee Answers Your Questions About His Presidential Bid 229

Posted by samzenpus from the here-you-go dept.
Recently you had a chance to ask John McAfee about his presidential run under the newly-formed Cyber Party. John covers a wide variety of topics from education and infrastructure, to gun control and drug legalization. Read below for his answers to your questions.
Reality
by wstrucke

How do you plan to overcome the virtual impossibility of breaking through the two-party system?

McAfee: Please bear with me on this one. It is a very serious question:

I have always been outside the box, exploring, discovering, examining. I take nothing for granted, including the rules laid down by my church, my family, my schools, my government. The world is a large place with conflicting morals, cultures, values and traditions. Life is something we enter without a universal instruction booklet and I have been searching for one - unsuccessfully. But I have learned much through the school of hard knocks. I have never murdered anyone and I do not steal. I avoid causing physical harm at all costs. I tell the truth, no matter how painful it may be me. I have compassion for all people. I have never raped, nor slept with a legally underage woman. I have honored my father and mother and have respected those worthy of respect. As for all the rest, I have broken every rule ever written. Some forays over the line have enlightened me. Some have brought me down. But I could not be the security talent that I am had I not done everything that I did. I understand the high and low of life and I understand the human heart. I see the misery in this world and I know that only compassion and courage will fix it.

The two party system is a single machine. It has evolved for more than one hundred years into a mechanism that absorbs all participants. Every party member becomes a cog in that machine, and the machine, and its cogs are devoid of heart and spirit. The machine cannot fix anything that touches the human heart or the human spirit, nor can it perceive anything beyond its own ambitions. It is the destroyer of humanity and the cause of wars and all manner of suffering.

The perception that the two party system cannot be overcome is an illusion, and the illusion is propagated by those who look to history for advice rather than the exquisite beauty of the present moment.

We are in the age of the Internet. We no longer must believe what others tell us. We no longer have to accept the polished, plastic debates of Presidential candidates to help us decide who might better lead the country. We have the full knowledge of the World at our fingertips. When Senator Nelson (D-Fl), for example, proposes a bill to force companies to reveal to its customers that a data breach has occurred within 30 days of the breach, we can do our own research and discover the following:

We would discover, for example, that more than 90% of all computer hacks go entirely undetected. Of the 10% that are detected, there is not a single example where the awareness of the breach happened sooner than 6 months after the breach, with the average being two or more years. Even the most invasive and egregious hacks are seldom detected soon enough to avoid the hackers from exploiting whatever they have taken.

A prime example of this is the hack of the US Office of Personnel Management. The most sensitive data that any government can possible posses, complete records of every employee possessing a Top Secret clearance, went undiscovered for more than a year.

You could then ask yourself: of what earthly value is a legislated notification period to a victim whose data has already been compromised and exploited to the fullest extent possible? Additionally, it is usually impossible, when a breach is detected, to determine whose data was taken. You might ask what the total cost in time and effort would be expended in adhering to this legislation and you could then research all pertinent data on the steps required to recall a senator.

I am running an electronic campaign. It is through interviews such as this, and through fireside chats using software that I have developed that I intend to reach the American public, whom, I believe is much smarter than the average politician believes. I am convinced that I will be the first independently elected U.S. President. I do know that the two party system must come to an end. Courage and compassion are the necessary ingredients of any push to save this country, and the party system is devoid of both.



One World
by shuz

The world largely views the USA as a bully and full of very wealthy people that don't care about those less privileged. As president of the USA, how would you advance world cooperation and work to change world views of the USA to just another location in the world full of mostly average non-privileged individuals living out their lives?

Unrelated, my best friend almost ran you over at Defcon. He wasn't looking where he is going and apologizes.

McAfee: Hat’s off to your friend, whom I dodged with ease. Had he not been drinking I may not be speaking to you now.

America has been playing World Policeman for far too long. It is our unwanted interference in the internal affairs of foreign states that has caused, supported and animated the concept of terrorism.

I have traveled extensively, and no traveler is hated more than the American traveler. We are arrogant and expect the entire world to speak our language rather than go to the trouble to learn theirs. We are rude: we expect everyone else’s food to taste like our own, and when it does not, we complain. We are morally and culturally judgmental and frown when an Ecuadorian Peasant urinates beside the road or naked man and woman emerge from the surf at Ipanema. We are demanding. We stay at cheap hotels in Tokyo and we are put out when there is no room service. We gossip and stare. And we dress and act like barbarians that only yesterday came down from the trees and began walking upright in near perfect imitation of humans.

We are an anomaly in the world. We project the greatest military power that the world has ever seen, yet we express ourselves as spoiled angry children. Even our leaders mimic the crudities of the American Tourist. Is it any wonder that we are embroiled in every hot spot of chaos that erupts within the world.

My administration will reign in our activities relating to policing the world. It will accept that the world is filled with cultures and governments alien to our own, yet admired and loved by those existing within those cultures. It will acknowledge that morality is, with few exceptions, a localized phenomenon and that we are not the world’s moral judge. It will acknowledge that Democracy is not the fountain stone as a measure of government, and that our own Democracy is fraught with severe problems that lead to the same police state atrocities that we generally ascribe to dictatorships. Thus, the mindless propagation of democracy throughout the world as the solution to all of the world’s problems will be re-evaluated. We need to first fix our own democracy.

Foreign aid will have to be curtailed. We are 18 Trillion dollars in debt. If a friend asks you for $20 and you don’t have it, you can’t give it. This is a prime axiom of the real world. The government does not live in the real world and simply prints money when it does not have any to spend. This printing devalues the hard earned dollars that you have worked for. It is a simple formula, irrespective of how complex the government wants you to believe that it is.

In a nutshell, I believe that our domestic problems are so extreme, that foreign policy will not much deteriorate if we do little or nothing about it for a while. It may even improve.



Snowden
by gQuigs

Would you pardon Edward Snowden?

McAfee: Absolutely. And Also Ross Ulbricht.



Trump
by justcauseisjustthat

What are your thoughts on Donald Trump? And why are you more qualified to be president?

McAfee: I believe that Trump would best serve the country by doing what he has always done so well – Creating thousands of productive jobs in private industry.

I am skeptical of someone who claims to have never written an email leading a country in a Cyber War with China.



Re:technology?
by Qzukk

Or, to put it differently: If we're going to become issues voters and only vote on the technology issue, why should we vote for you instead of Lawrence Lessig?

McAfee: I have never proposed that we become one issue voters. You’re confusing me with President Obama.

What I had to say on that was: On 2 October, President Obama declared: “Here's what you need to do: You have to make sure that anybody that you are voting for is on the right side of this issue.” If politicians oppose these measures, he continued, “even if they're great on other stuff, you've got to vote against them.” He was talking about gun control.

My first thought upon hearing Obama's proclamation was that I was in the middle of an acid flashback and I had no benzodiazepines to mediate the trip. My second thought was: what possible single issue, in this complex society of ours, would merit a “single issue” status?

Just to set the record straight.



Nuclear Power using LFTR
by Anonymous Coward

John, what is your position on Nuclear Power?

Would you support the re-opening of research into liquid fluoride thorium reactors. These reactor designs, and the thorium fuel cycle were researched back in the 70's and can solve both our energy crisis, be far more environmentally friendly than uranium based fuel cycles, and can even used 'spent' uranium reactor fuel as fuel sources, allowing us to reprocess our vast quantity of spent fuel into less harmful waste, while also capturing the energy from them (instead of having it wasted heating water in spent fuel ponds).

McAfee: We have hobbled ourselves and become non competitive by our harsh legislation again nuclear power. This will change.



What Technologies?
by Bodhammer

What technology research should be government funded and what should be private?

McAfee: We must bolster our Cyber security and cyber weapons research, first and foremost, and this must be government funded. We are so far behind the Chinese that catching up is not at all certain, even with me at the helm. As to the rest, I need to understand it better and consider it well.



Cybersecurity Knowledge?
by jmac_the_man

Mr. McAfee, obviously your field of expertise is Information Security. What are the one or two biggest problems facing the Federal government from an IT perspective? How would you solve these problems?

McAfee: Education is number one. Our information technology managers are generally old, ossified and unmotivated to keep up with the rapidly changing technology environment. Without education, all of our efforts will amount to nothing.



Comment on your last interview
by schneidafunk

Care to comment on your last answer from your last interview here on slashdot?

“McAfee: The attorney for the House Ways and Means Committee contacted me and asked if I would help. I said ‘no’. I would never run for office, neither would I want to be in office, of any kind. I would rather drive a nail through my foot.”

McAfee: I would still rather drive a nail through my foot. I sincerely do not want this. My closest friends, however, have threatened to kneecap me if I don’t do it. If you can provide me safe harbor from my friends and advisers I would gladly stop campaigning.



Where's the rest of the platform?
by mr_mischief

We understand where you stand on surveillance. Where do you stand on these issues?: (*Some subjects specifically addressed at https://mcafee16.com/issues/ were removed.*)

firearms
McAfee: An armed society is a polite society.

The impetus for most proclamations surrounding gun control are generally mass murders, some involving guns. A little research will uncover the little known fact that mass murders were virtually unknown prior to 1980.

This fact disturbs me, and it should you, since guns have been prominently owned in this society since the founding of our country, and there was no sweeping legislation in 1980 or after that radically changed gun ownership laws or rates of gun ownership. This, to a thinking person, without qualification, removes guns as the source of our problem — unless of course guns suddenly achieved the ability to subconsciously tempt their owners to use them in heretofore-unknown ways. If not, then the problem appears to be an increase in violent urgings, stemming from some unknown source deep within the fabric of our society.

There are many possibilities for this source. In the 1980s we saw the first widescale use of selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (anti-depressants) such as Prozac, Paxil, and others. Hundreds of studies have shown that these anti depressants have side effects that include violent thoughts. A few minutes of research will tell us that 8 percent of the U.S. is taking anti-depressants, yet more than 30 percent of all mass murderers since 1980 were known to have been taking them. It’s highly suspected that the real number approaches 90 percent — a statistical anomaly of egregious proportions. I would begin here if I were looking for a source.

But it’s much easier to disprove a cause than it is to prove a cause. Use of anti-depressants may merely be an artifact of some deeper cause that is as yet unknown.

We do know that governments that turn deceptive and begin spying on their citizens foment unrest, anger, and despair. However, given that we do not have citizens carrying signs in the streets and recalling their representatives en masse — outward signs we would expect from a citizenry that is not afraid of its government — then perhaps that has not happened here in America.

In any case, I do not believe that guns are the problem. On the other hand, Gun Free Zones appear to be a serious problem. Every mass shooting for the past 20 years has occurred in a gun free zone. Where else would someone with a gun who wants to create havoc go? We need armed guards at schools, churches, courthouses and every other place that we now deem “gun free”

abortion
McAfee: A woman's body is her own.

gay marriage
McAfee: Homosexual couples of either sex should equally be allowed to suffer the frustrations of marriage along with everyone else.

keeping the FCC from preventing flashing of consumer electronics with new firmware
McAfee: Is the FCC still needed in an age of digital communications? Isn't this the question?

net neutrality
McAfee: Any control whatsoever of the Internet is questionable if not actually insidious.

lowering the skyrocketing levels of student debt
McAfee: Why not lower the cost of education itself? What is the cause of these high costs? Further, why not redefine Education in a manner that reflects the fact that the overwhelming knowledge base no longer resides in Universities but is freely available on the Net? We need to ask ourselves whether our higher education system in it's entirety, us actually relevant.

making healthcare affordable or subsidizing paying for it
McAfee: Healthcare costs would be cut by 75% if medical malpractice lawsuits were outlawed or at least massively curtailed.

investing in our roads and bridges
McAfee: This was the original main intent of government - an infrastructure, plus national defense. Look how far we have strayed. I intend to take the "power" out of government and return it to is original function of "service"



What will you do when you become president?
by Kohath

What is your agenda for the first 100 days of the McAfee administration?

McAfee:
  • Pardon All non violent Marijuana offenses, whether for possession or for sale.
  • Pardon Edward Snowden and Ross Ulbricht.
  • Disband the TSA in its entirety. I will continue to pay all salaries until I can figure out what value the employees have. The TSA budget is nearly $8 Billion. Salaries are less than $2 Billion. We save $6 Billion.
  • Place armed marshals on all flights.
  • Disband the Bureau of Indian Affairs – under same principles as TSA.
  • Radically restrict The FDA.
  • Direct the NSA and all other covert agencies that report to the Executive Branch to end all spying on American citizens and to place their efforts where our real threats lie.

After that, I’m unclear. Hopefully I will have learned much after I assume the Oval Office.
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Interviews: John McAfee Answers Your Questions About His Presidential Bid More

Interviews: John McAfee Answers Your Questions About His Presidential Bid

Comments Filter:

  • Yep (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 19, 2015 @01:00PM (#50759921)

    I agree with his answers, and may be a good president if elected. Conclusion: he's unelectable.

    • This (Score:4, Insightful)

      by s.petry ( 762400 ) on Monday October 19, 2015 @01:16PM (#50760069)

      I don't agree with every position he has, but he sits squarely in the "Mostly Libertarian" camp. The exception I believe is his stance on abortion, which like most progressives fails to recognize that two people are required to make a baby. Too many exceptions and way too much to just answer as he did. He also seems to have the NSA and Cyber Security as conflicting ideas. In theory, regulation should make the NSA the protectors of US border Cyber Space, instead of being the gestapo hunting down the anti-establishment people.

      I'd still not vote for him though, for the same reason I would not vote Trump. As much as I agree with their current rhetoric they both have a past full of abusing the law and people for personal gain. We all make mistakes, but if you don't come clean and apologize I doubt that you have magically become a better person all of a sudden. Possible, sure.. Probable? Hardly.

      • If the laws are unjust then they're fine to abuse.

        How long were people committing sodomy in Texas before it was repealed?

        • Now you have to tell me, please, since I don't live in Texas.

          • I don't either, but considering the demographic of certain parts of Texas that have been around for...quite some time since before the law was repealed...

          • In fact, have you seen Full Metal Jacket? Remember what the drill sergeant said about people from Texas?

            • You learn something new every day. Until now I never knew that sarcastic comments within the context of a movie counted as actual documentary evidence of historical fact.

              Thanks, slashdot! And damn the naysayers!

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Maritz ( 1829006 )

                Until now I never knew that sarcastic comments within the context of a movie counted as actual documentary evidence of historical fact.

                At first I read that slack-jawed, but now I realise you must be joking.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by s.petry ( 762400 )

          Perhaps I misunderstand, or you responded to the wrong person but exactly what laws here are unjust?

          McAfee is an admitted drug abuser, potential murderer, and admitted to sexually abusing young teenage girls (sorry, he admitted to screwing a 15 year old but legally it's abuse). The drug use for himself is fine, but there are also hints that he was trafficking and selling. Not quite so fine when we go there. He was also feeding drugs and alcohol to those same teenage girls so that he could bang them.

          Trump

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DogDude ( 805747 )
        like most progressives fails to recognize that two people are required to make a baby

        Yeah, a guy's 30 seconds of friction and little squirt are equivalent to a woman's pregnancy and childbirth subsequent recovery. Spot on.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by operagost ( 62405 )
          If this is the case, why do we have child support?

        • Re:This (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Major Blud ( 789630 ) on Monday October 19, 2015 @01:38PM (#50760251) Homepage

          "Yeah, a guy's 30 seconds of friction and little squirt are equivalent to a woman's pregnancy and childbirth subsequent recovery. Spot on."

          It's a shame that the 30 seconds of friction and little squirt are equivalent to 18 years of child support.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Tom ( 822 )

            It's not just child support. Try to get out of a marriage without losing your life savings once there is a child.

            • Nobody forced you to marry or make a child, though.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Tom ( 822 )

                That's not the point.

                There are some things seriously wrong with the world right now, and they are based on ancient and - by our current understanding - wrong concepts of human social needs.

                Women used to belong to a man, and some of the conclusions from that are still in place. One of the reasons abortion is such a hot potato is that there's still fragments of the idea that a woman is just a breeding machine for the man, a tool for making him an heir.

                At the same time, men are equally disadvantaged by these o

        • Actually, it's "one woman and a turkey baster." :-)

          He almost makes Trump look better by comparison.

          • Turkey drippings cause pregnancy? Damn, I should have paid more attention in Health class! I was sure that a man was involved in the process somewhere.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by TheCarp ( 96830 )

        > "Mostly Libertarian" camp. The exception I believe is his stance on abortion, which like most progressives fails to recognize that two people are required to make a baby.

        How is that any exception? "A woman's body is her own" sounds pretty libertarian to me. In fact, I fail to see how claiming dominion over someone else's medical choices in any way qualifies as libertarian. It is absolute anathema to the core. If libertarianism means ANYTHING at all other than just another label....then it means the pri

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Tom ( 822 )

        his stance on abortion, which like most progressives fails to recognize that two people are required to make a baby.

        The making part is not what the whole abortion thing is all about. Sure the issue is tricky, but with his very straight approach, we would definitely have a very good solution, and solving the rare "man wants the baby, woman doesn't" case will be much easier than the current situation.

        We all make mistakes, but if you don't come clean and apologize I doubt that you have magically become a better person all of a sudden. Possible, sure.. Probable? Hardly.

        I'm the opposite. I don't trust "good people". Knowing that we are all human and we all make mistakes, it is more likely that they are tricky and good at hiding bodies than it is that they are actually flawless.

  • First guy to get the education question right (Score:5, Insightful)

    by xxxJonBoyxxx ( 565205 ) on Monday October 19, 2015 @01:06PM (#50759971)

    >> lowering the skyrocketing levels of student debt McAfee: Why not lower the cost of education itself? What is the cause of these high costs?

    I think McAfee's the first guy to get the education question right.

    • I personally think student loans are the single biggest cause of high tuition. This is simple supply and demand. What happens when people are given money to throw at tuition costs? Demand for higher priced courses goes up, which places upward pressure on tuition costs.

      Therefore a wonderful place to start would be to have the government stop issuing student loans, and make all private student loans henceforth be possible to chapter 7.

      And by the way, I have zero sympathy for people who took out massive studen

      • When you factor in the college wage premium, the cost is lower than it has been since the 50's. Median college debt is around $30k

    • What is the cause of these high costs?

      Student debt. And student grants. When you pump more money into the demand for a good, the price of the good goes up as more supply is created. Basic econominics.

    • The cause for the high costs is the american so beloved free market and ratio between supply and demand topped with clever marketing and lobbying that makes some universities superiour to others.

  • I wonder why McAfee didn't just run as a libertarian. His views seem to align with a lot of libertarian beliefs.

    • I wonder why McAfee didn't just run as a libertarian. His views seem to align with a lot of libertarian beliefs.
      Erm ... and which party would that be?
      As fars I know the mayjour parties in the US are the Republicans and the Democrats ... never heard about 'the Libertarians'.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by aitikin ( 909209 )

        I wonder why McAfee didn't just run as a libertarian. His views seem to align with a lot of libertarian beliefs. Erm ... and which party would that be? As fars I know the mayjour parties in the US are the Republicans and the Democrats ... never heard about 'the Libertarians'.

        Just because they're not a major party doesn't mean they don't exist. The Libertarian Party [wikipedia.org] has been around for a while (40+ years per Wikipedia). The US has hundreds if not thousands of parties in our political system, but, by a stupid clause in The Constitution ("The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed"), we have a de facto 2 party system in place for the Presidency, which is why you only hear of the De

  • This interview with RT does a good job of illustrating many of John McAfee’s views: "This video is no longer available because the YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated." http://i.imgur.com/KuYENGO.png [imgur.com]

    For a guy who got rich from making security software for personal computers, this sure is one major campaigning fuck-up, if you pardon my French.

  • Pardon Ross Ulbricht? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by PvtVoid ( 1252388 ) on Monday October 19, 2015 @01:10PM (#50760007)

    Really? How about Hans Reiser while we're at it?

  • Shit, they are even behind the times on terminology. Nobody uses Cyber anymore.

  • Malpractice.. (Score:5, Informative)

    by gQuigs ( 913879 ) on Monday October 19, 2015 @01:15PM (#50760055) Homepage

    >McAfee: Healthcare costs would be cut by 75% if medical malpractice lawsuits were outlawed or at least massively curtailed.

    Or around 2.5% - http://health.usnews.com/healt... [usnews.com]

    Maybe if we design our system so it's not so hard to apologize when a doctor makes a mistake that would help...
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm... [nih.gov]

    • >McAfee: Healthcare costs would be cut by 75% if medical malpractice lawsuits were outlawed or at least massively curtailed.

      Or around 2.5% - http://health.usnews.com/healt... [usnews.com]

      Maybe if we design our system so it's not so hard to apologize when a doctor makes a mistake that would help... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm... [nih.gov]

      McAfee is nuts.... There is no way 75% is even close.

      He's also nuts on the solution to the problem....

      The solution to this problem is "Looser pays legal fees". Right now, everybody pays their own legal fees, unless you sue for your legal costs and win. This should be "Looser pays" which means if you file a lawsuit and loose for any reason (judge dismisses it or you loose in court) you pay everybody's legal fees. This will make it much more dangerous for lawyers to gin up a possible case, sue Big Daddy

      • Re:Malpractice.. (Score:4, Informative)

        by BronsCon ( 927697 ) <social@bronstrup.com> on Monday October 19, 2015 @02:16PM (#50760541) Journal
        Loser.

        I agree with your assessment, but... Loser.

        That is to say, your grasp of the English language seems to be much looser than mine.

        • Loser. I agree with your assessment, but... Loser.

          Thank you... Sorry about the usage issues.... Not enough caffeine today..

      • The solution to this problem is "Looser pays legal fees".

        Since "losing" is usually only tenuously related to the merits of the case, this would be a huge barrier to anyone without deep pockets, even if they have a valid case. Our justice system is already skewed in favor of big organizations, we don't need to make it worse.

        A better solution would be a system of quick summary proceedings, similar to small claims court. Each side gets 5 minutes to make their case, without a lawyer. Then it is only loser pays if the loser rejected the summary judgement and later

        • 5 min summary judgments In a malpractice suit? I don't think so. Medical malpractice is a bit more complicated than your average person could argue, and you would be trying to argue with a doctor with a degree, license and experience. They'd get an expert witness, you'd get whatever you could Google... That you had a bad outcome from a medical procedure is NOT evidence enough that the Doctor is responsible, so I'd expect the doctor to win every time at summary judgment.

          And you where complaining about "los

          • you would be trying to argue with a doctor with a degree, license and experience.

            You would also be arguing in front of an experienced judge with subject matter expertise, who specializes in medical summaries.

            They'd get an expert witness, you'd get whatever you could Google...

            Five minutes isn't enough time to bring in an expert witness.

            so I'd expect the doctor to win every time at summary judgment.

            Plenty of people take corporations to small claims court, and prevail more often than in higher courts.

            BTW, Loser pays is what they do in the UK and *most* of Europe. They have a lot less of a problem with stupid civil cases clogging up their courts.

            Common citizens have far less access to the justice system in Europe. "Loser pays" is basically the same as "Corporation wins".

            • They'd get an expert witness, you'd get whatever you could Google...

              Five minutes isn't enough time to bring in an expert witness.

              The doctor you where suing IS an expert witness, so if a question came up about a medical choice they made, they'd be the expert. Or do you make a habit of not seeing doctors who are board certified and licensed? If this doctor says, "Well, in this case my choice of treatment was in the best interests of the patient, it was reasonable and customary for the condition being treated. I informed the patient (you) of the possible complications and was directed to proceed as this "Authorization to treat" form,

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Zak3056 ( 69287 )

        The solution to this problem is "Looser pays legal fees"

        "Loser pays" would certainly curtail frivolous cases. Unfortunately, it would also severely curtail cases that have strong merit and deserve to be heard by a jury.

        Short of complete reform of our legal system, I don't believe there is a good, just solution to the problem short of something like all punitive damages are paid to the state, rather than to the losing party, and possibly something draconian like a cap on legal fees... but both of these have their own problems.

        • I'm not so sure it would curtail all that many cases with obvious merit. The judgments would still be potentially big and if there was enough merit in the case the draw would be strong to get to trial. What would happen is lawyers would be more selective about the cases they took on contingency and those they didn't. If you have a good case, they will take you, but if your case is not that good, they might be more apt to not take the chance on you. If you want to pay up front and assume the risks, they w

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Zak3056 ( 69287 )

            I think you and I are like mind on the general state of the legal profession, so I will not comment on your second point. However:

            I'm not so sure it would curtail all that many cases with obvious merit. The judgments would still be potentially big and if there was enough merit in the case the draw would be strong to get to trial. What would happen is lawyers would be more selective about the cases they took on contingency and those they didn't. If you have a good case, they will take you, but if your case is not that good, they might be more apt to not take the chance on you. If you want to pay up front and assume the risks, they will be happy to take you. Nobody is prevented from taking a case to court if that's what they want to do.

            Contingency wouldn't change at all--in a "loser pays" system, the attorneys will not be the ones to bear the costs, since as you allude to, the lawyers ALWAYS get paid.

            What I am getting at with my statement that "cases with strong merit would not get heard by a jury" I propose the following example: your neighbor has turned your subdivision into a free fire zone. You do not liv

        • "Loser pays" works just fine in Germany and there are far less frivolous cases indeed.

  • Medical malpractice adds perhaps 5% to total medical costs, there is no way we could cut costs by 75% even if all lawsuits were eliminated.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by OzPeter ( 195038 )

      Medical malpractice adds perhaps 5% to total medical costs, there is no way we could cut costs by 75% even if all lawsuits were eliminated.

      Its more insidious than that. Eliminating the lawsuits may reduce costs, but how do you eliminate the malpractice in the first place?

      That says to me that he has no clue and should stick to what he does best.

      • Don't make winning a lawsuit the same as winning a lottery.

        An armed society is NOT a polite society. If it were, there'd be no real problems in the middle east, or even Detroit.

    • You're not including all the CYA procedures and you're conveniently not including procedures that hospitals add in order to protect themselves. It may not be 75% but it's substantial.

      Just look at the cost of malpractice insurance in 1960 and 2010. If you were a doctor and had to pay $500,000/year in insurance as opposed to $25,000 how much more would you have to charge each patient? How many more CYA procedures would you authorize?

      Again, there may not be a 75% reduction but it would be a hell of a lo

    • Re:5% not 75% (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Archangel Michael ( 180766 ) on Monday October 19, 2015 @01:41PM (#50760287) Journal

      Those are costs directly associated with Malpractice. There are a shit ton of additional costs associated that aren't direct. It is just like insurance, there is the cost of insurance, and then there is the back office costs associated with it that aren't direct. All these extra costs have driven health care costs through the roof.

      There is no incentive to streamline any of these extra costs, because the people imposing them aren't the ones bearing them. Ultimately, it is us the end user/consumer that bears the full cost of all these extra costs.

  • complains about naked people at the beach, people pissing by the road, or unusual food when they're traveling? What an odd straw man... one he implies does not, of course, apply to him.

    I'm tired of having other Americans throw me under the bus. I can't choose how the rest of the world sees me, but I certainly am not going to allow another American to perpetuate the nonsense of the ugly American.

    It's a shame that a man with many good ideas has to ruin an interview with irrelevant pontification.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Thud457 ( 234763 )
      Seems like McAfee's (alleged?) behavior in Belize and environs hits a lot of those "ugly American" tropes pretty hard.
      Just sayin'.

  • Neighbor (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nycsubway ( 79012 ) on Monday October 19, 2015 @01:38PM (#50760263) Homepage

    Didn't he kill his neighbor and evade questioning from the Belize police? I don't really care what he has to stand for, the guy seems nuts. Some sort of reliability is important for a president president... or at least apparent competency.

    • Look, that McAfee even thinks and acts like he has a chance makes him as nuts as the bulk of the fringe crazies who sign up as a presidential contender. Everybody knows that it will boil down to two major candidates from the two major parties, nobody else matters except in how many votes they can suck off the two major contenders. McAfee won't get more votes than I can count on my fingers and toes from people who are actually wanting him to be president. He's crazy.

      But McAfee has a long sorted history of

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Thing 1 ( 178996 )

        But McAfee has a long sorted history of crazy behavior so why shouldn't this be any different?

        So, his craziness starts small, and only grows in size?

  • So, your plan to overcome the two-party system... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Chris Mattern ( 191822 ) on Monday October 19, 2015 @01:42PM (#50760295)

    Is to wish really, really hard and think those good, positive thoughts.

    I'm sure that will work out well for you.

  • I'm curious as to how he wants to limit the FDA and to what ends.

  • Is he helping? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by kamapuaa ( 555446 ) on Monday October 19, 2015 @01:59PM (#50760423) Homepage

    I have traveled extensively, and no traveler is hated more than the American traveler. We are arrogant and expect the entire world to speak our language

    McAffee is a creepy old sex tourist, using his money to sleep with women 40 years younger than him.

    • McAffee is a creepy old sex tourist, using his money to sleep with women 40 years younger than him

      For the sake of argument, let's say that the above is true. Is he (A) at fault for not using his money the way you think he should... or are (B) the women [40 years younger at fault] somehow at fault for accepting said money... or (C) are you demonstrably a complete holier-than-thou loser? I can certainly tell you which option I'd put my my money on (though in another twenty years, I might rather just hand it to a woman 40 years younger than myself; you never know). ;)

    • McAffee is ... using his money to sleep with women 40 years younger than him.

      What's wrong with that, other than your personal morals?

      • Where did I say it was wrong? Why are you presuming your own moral values on what I said?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mjwx ( 966435 )

        McAffee is ... using his money to sleep with women 40 years younger than him.

        What's wrong with that, other than your personal morals?

        Forget morals, that is just a convenient excuse. For the most part it's jealousy. John McAfee spent a lot of time enjoying himself, the GP has not. Others enjoying life upsets insecure people, they expect everyone to be as miserable as they are.

        The excuses they use are inconsequential, if you say that Colombians are happy (well they are) they'll instantly bring up drug wars and Pablo Escobar because they cant accept that someone living a different life, richer or poorer, can be happier than them. They ha

    • I have traveled extensively, and no traveler is hated more than the American traveler. We are arrogant and expect the entire world to speak our language

      McAffee is a creepy old sex tourist, using his money to sleep with women 40 years younger than him.

      "Someone, somewhere, is having fun" - you just broke my PuritanAlert detector.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tom ( 822 )

      What you want to say is that he has 1st hand experience of the claim that he is making. And you know what? It is absolutely possible, even likely, that both of you are right.

      This seems to be forgotten in so many discussions - that the truth matrix has four fields. Both parties can be right, both parties can be wrong. Why we so often assume one is wrong and one is right?

  • Are you Crazy John?

    Yep! You are.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Thud457 ( 234763 )

      Are you Crazy

      Judging by a lot of the other candidates, apparently that's a prerequisite for the job these days.

  • "Disband the Bureau of Indian Affairs" (Score:3)

    by funwithBSD ( 245349 ) on Monday October 19, 2015 @02:28PM (#50760629)

    Not sure you can, they are tied to the Treaties with the Tribes.

    Unless you are going to renegotiate those too.

  • Did you really tell a BBC correspondent that you had "the black vote" because you bave a black wife and the "Americans with tattoos vote" (one in five Americans, apperently) because you're the only candidtate with tatoos?

    Http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34321191

  • We need armed guards at schools, churches, courthouses and every other place

    He must be living in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, or some other country with a civil war, isn't it? Otherwise why would he wants armed guard in school?

  • 1. Would you pardon Bradley Manning? Would you pardon Hillary Clinton?

    2. Would you expand on your statement/admission: “My first thought upon hearing Obama's proclamation was that I was in the middle of an acid flashback and I had no benzodiazepines to mediate the trip.”

    3. Your statement on abortion is evasive. Obviously, “A woman's body is her own” -- as is a man's, his own. The life growing inside her body, though, is not hers, it is its own life, and has its own soul. Your

  • About the two party system...

    I've never murdered anyone! I've never had sex with children! Who told you otherwise?

    Sheesh. I'm glad they didn't ask him to explain the infield fly rule. I don't think I'm cosmopolitan enough to handle his answer to that one.

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