Tag: Libertarians

Another Choice For November

We are pretty certain that Dems have their candidate for the 2024 election as well as the GOP….but there will be others on the fringes for everybody’s consideration.

Recently the Libertarian Party has announced their candidate in the upcoming competition….Chase Oliver will get the nod.

The Libertarians have chosen their 2024 nominee, and his name isn’t Trump or Kennedy. Instead, the party chose Chase Oliver—a former Democrat from Georgia who describes himself as “armed and gay,” reports the New York Times. Donald Trump, who spoke to the convention Saturday night and heard plenty of heckling, wasn’t an official candidate and received six write-in votes. In a Truth Social statement on Sunday, Trump said he didn’t file paperwork to be the third party’s nominee but could’ve won if he wished. (Stormy Daniels received one write-in vote.)

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. received a warmer reception than Trump when he spoke Friday, but the independent was eliminated in the first round of voting, per the Hill. Oliver got the nod after seven rounds of voting. “Rule No. 1: If you want to elect a real political outsider, don’t elect somebody with the last name Kennedy,” he said, per the Times. In regard to Trump and President Biden, Oliver added that younger voters “don’t want octogenarians running their lives.” The party won 1% of the vote in the 2020 election, notes the AP, which adds that it could play an outsize role in 2024 given how close the Biden-Trump matchup is expected to be.

My first question is….Trump is a shoo in for the GOP nomination then why was he trying hard for the Libertarian Party nomination?

At least RFK, Jr did not get the nod….he will have to be happy with an independent run.

I think the Libertarians could do well in November pulling disgruntled Repubs and even some centrist Dems….but will it be enough to help the odds?

Probably not and then anyone that votes Libertarian will have to suffer the accusations of helping elect the ‘other’ guy.

The first thing the Libertarians need to do is introduce the candidate because most of America has never heard of this guy and that could be a major setback in 2024.

Check them out.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Political Elites Are Sweating

College of Political Knowledge

2024 Election Series

I know….I know….it is early and all this may not matter….but what if it does matter?

The anti-vaxxer, RFK, Jr, is considering running as a Libertarian and if he does the political elites of both parties are beginning to take notice after being dismissive of his possible candidacy.

While many “experts” still dismiss the possibility of an independent or third-party candidate winning the election, there seems to be a bit more hand-wringing and whistling past the graveyard amongst both Democratic and Republican operatives. Most especially as there is now a possibility that Kennedy may run on the Libertarian Party ticket.

Outlined on this site earlier this week in a piece titled “RFK Jr.’s possible Libertarian bid rankles Democrats,” that possibility is duly noted. As is the growing fear of certain Democratic operatives. And trust me, it is not just Democrats who are viewing that possibility with a great deal of nervousness. It is Republicans as well.

The main reason being — as spelled out in the piece — that by becoming the standard-bearer for the Libertarian Party, Kennedy would be significantly more likely to get on state ballots, including key battleground states.

Democratic strategist Doug Gordon said, “Hijacking the Libertarian Party ballot line won’t change his odds of winning the presidency, which he has no chance at. But it does increase the odds he could play spoiler and hand the keys to the White House back to Trump.”

To paraphrase Hamlet, “Methinks the strategist doth protest too much.”

Democratic and Republican elites fear RFK Jr.’s growing path to victory

I know all you self-styled independents do not want to hear that a third party is becoming strong enough to challenge the idiots in the two parties….but there it is.

There is still a long way to go before we have the dash for the finish line in 2024….but now is the perfect time to look at candidates and possible candidates for you support.

Personally I have a problem with these anti-vaxxers and would never vote for someone so callous….it would do nothing to improve the plight of the people of this country.

But that is just me.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

2020–Amash For President

Our presidential future for the last couple of months have been Trump or Biden…..we now have a new candidate to give us voters an alternate to dumb or dumber…..

His name is Justin Amash…..

Justin Amash, an independent congressman from Michigan, announced Tuesday that he is forming an exploratory committee for president as a Libertarian Party candidate.

Amash’s prospects, though dim, could nevertheless be significant in a close election between President Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Third-party candidates who gain even a fraction of the vote in swing states can affect the outcome in a close race.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/28/amash-announces-exploratory-committee-for-president-219357

As with everything our president, Donald the Orange, has something to say about an Amash candidacy…..

Rep. Justin Amash on Tuesday took a step toward launching his own third-party bid for the presidency—and President Trump essentially told him to go for it on Wednesday. In what the Hill terms a “mocking” tweet, Trump wrote, “I think Amash would make a wonderful candidate, especially since he is way behind in his district and has no chance of maintaining his Congressional seat.” Politico frames Trump as “egging on” the Michigan independent in a tweet that concluded with, “He almost always votes for the Do Nothing Dems anyway. I like him even more than Jill Stein!”

The latter was a reference to the 2016 Green Party nominee. Politico notes that some people claimed Stein siphoned votes from Hillary Clinton, helping to hand Trump the White House. Trump’s tweet was paired with a Washington Post op-ed by former Illinois Rep. Joe Walsh, who argued that should Amash secure the Libertarian nomination, the same thing could play out this election cycle. But a CNN analysis by Harry Enten argues that the limited polling data on Amash doesn’t place his meager support with any one demographic. Enten believes any impact Amash might have would be nominal, though he does acknowledge that it’s possible Amash could have a greater impact in Michigan, where Biden currently leads Trump by 8 points.

That should people something to think about when they try to decide which person to give their vote to in November.

Leran Stuff!

VOTE!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

A Fresh Face For 2020

Closing Thought–08Jan20

We know all about this Dems as they scrap and insult and accuse their fellow party members….but what about those “alternatives” to our badly broke 2m party system?

As we approach the first contests tpwards the general election in November…..this time let’s look at the Libertarians, a perennial participant in the elections.

Since he could NO traction as a Dem candidate the former governor of Rhode Island has entered as a Libertarian….

Former Democratic presidential candidate Lincoln Chafee has filed to run for president as a Libertarian. The former governor of Rhode Island on Sunday registered the “Lincoln Chafee For President” campaign committee with the Federal Election Commission, the AP reports. A fundraising website linked to the FEC filing states, “Lincoln Leads with TRUTH.” Chafee moved to Wyoming last year and joined the Libertarian Party. He was a Republican in the US Senate and became an independent after losing his seat in 2006. Chafee was then elected Rhode Island governor in 2010 as an independent and became a Democrat in office. He did not run for reelection but mounted a short-lived run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2015.

A candidate in search of a party……sorry this person has been a GOPer, a Dem an independent and now a Libertarian….will never trust a candidate that cannot make up his mind on where his policies fall.

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Is Hyper-Capitalism Dead?

Is the “Witch Is Dead”?

Do you know what an “Objectivist” is?

Objectivism holds that there is no greater moral goal than achieving happiness. But one cannot achieve happiness by wish or whim. Fundamentally, it requires rational respect for the facts of reality, including the facts about our human nature and needs. Happiness requires that one live by objective principles, including moral integrity and respect for the rights of others. Politically, Objectivists advocate laissez-faire capitalism. Under capitalism, a strictly limited government protects each person’s rights to life, liberty, and property and forbids that anyone initiate force against anyone else. The heroes of Objectivism are achievers who build businesses, invent technologies, and create art and ideas, depending on their own talents and on trade with other independent people to reach their goals.

Politicians like Rand Paul (that is Rand not Rue) and ex Speaker Ryan were followers of the head honcho of this philosophy Ayn Rand….but in today’s society it looks as if the meth head may be losing her hold on the young…..

Eight rules governed the original Ayn Rand clubs that proliferated across college campuses in the 1960s, as they sought to seed Objectivism—Rand’s philosophical glorification of laissez-faire capitalism and heroic individualism—in the minds of impressionable youth. And of these eight, only two rules could ever be mentioned publicly: 1) Ayn Rand is the greatest human being who has ever lived, and2) her novel Atlas Shrugged is the greatest human achievement in the history of the world.

Objectivism has a serious youth problem, and the conference’s organizers were quite aware of it. They offered a discount rate for those under 30, a talent show, and extracurricular activities like “late night jams.” It made me wonder: Is Rand’s hyper-capitalist philosophy—which has influenced some of the most powerful political and economic giants of recent history, from Ronald Reagan and Alan Greenspan to Mark Cuban and Steve Jobs—running out of juice? There was only one way to find out. I would have to attend the conference’s various panels on the virtue of selfishness, the evils of regulation, and the greatness of capitalism’s dark patron saint, and try to fraternize with the next class of Paul Ryans in the making. So I went into the Objectivist sanctums of Cleveland, sporting an Ayn Rand tote bag outfitted with an “I <3 fossil fuels” pin, to gauge the reach of Rand’s cult of unbridled capitalism on today’s political scene.

https://newrepublic.com/article/154705/last-ayn-rand-acolytes

The young seem to be leaning Left these days…..and that will not change as long as economic injustice is running rampant…..change that and it is possible that Rand’s (Ayn not Paul) could once again be popular…look at the new popularity of Orwell’s “1984”….any thing is possible.

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

Go North Young Man

Closing Thought: 17Jan19

The GOP’s hit man has been Rand Paul, a bit of a Libertarian, in our Congress…he usually runs to a camera and spouts his opposition to this policy or that and then when the time comes he supports it. To me that makes him a “media whore” (those that will do or say anything to get on camera and in the news)…..

But the best thing is he is a rabid opponent of “socialized medicine”…very local in his opposition…so when the news came out that he had to have surgery I found his choice of locations an interesting one……

The fallout from Rand Paul’s 2017 fight with a neighbor continues: The Kentucky senator is going to Canada for surgery he says is related to an injury he got when Rene Boucher attacked him while he was mowing his lawn. Paul ended up with six broken ribs and a bruised lung, and is scheduled to have outpatient hernia surgery next week at Shouldice Hernia Hospital in Thornhill, Ontario, the Courier-Journal reports. Of course, much is being made about the fact that Paul is an opponent of socialized medicine and has compared universal health care, which Canada uses, to “slavery.” But his spokesperson had a response for the criticism, noting the hospital Paul is utilizing is privately administered.

“This is more fake news on a story that has been terribly reported from day one—this is a private, world renowned hospital separate from any system and people come from around the world to pay cash for their services,” the rep says. The Hill notes that the hospital bills itself as “the only licensed hospital in the world dedicated to repairing hernias.” According to documents filed as part of Paul’s civil lawsuit against Boucher, which is seeking money for medical costs related to the attack, the procedure is estimated to cost between $5,000 and $8,000. A jury trial for the civil case is scheduled for Jan. 28. Boucher pleaded guilty to the attack in March.

But I thought that the Canadian system was inferior……That should tell you everything you need to know about the American health care……a Libertarian will not support it in deed.

Time for that Medicare For All thing!

Closing Thought–20Nov18

For some time now Libertarian has been a lock step with the GOP on many issues especially on the economic side…..but a Libertarian think tank has made an observation that many of us have made in the past….it is a “one trick pony” ideology…….

Seems the Libertarians agree with me and others……

For millions of people, ideology is the lighthouse in a dark sea of politics. An uncompromising vision of how the world is supposed to work, and how to fix it, is just too alluring for partisans to ignore. Political parties’ most frenzied supporters are demanding ideological purity from their candidates as they push out moderates, especially on the right. As a result, ever fewer temperate souls are left to hold the middle ground in politics.

Yet the libertarian think tank Niskanen Center in Washington, DC, argues the moderate middle is the future. Niskanen president Jerry Taylor wrote in an Oct. 29 essay that he is dropping the libertarian banner the center has shared with the likes of the more conservative Cato Institute. In a 3,595-word farewell to the libertarian world, he says libertarianism, and ideology itself, is a dead end. “I have abandoned that libertarian project…because I have come to abandon ideology,” writes Taylor, who invites readers to flee the “clean and well-lit prison of one idea.”

https://qz.com/1443787/a-libertarian-think-tank-just-gave-up-on-libertarianism/

Really?

If I have any Libertarian followers please weigh in on this turn of events…..are they right about the politics of the party?

Is The “Libertarian Moment” Gone?

About 10 years ago with the election of Rand Paul conservatives were celebrating for they saw a Libertarian mindset taking hold in society….and so it was for a few years and then the election of 2016 and that of Donald trump has crapped on any Libertarian forward movement to a halt.

Are true conservative(Libertarian) policies dead in the water?

Senator Rand Paul is a man out of time. It was only a few years ago that the editors of Reason magazine held him up as the personification of what they imagined to be a “libertarian moment,” a term that enjoyed some momentary cachet in the pages of The New York Times, The Atlantic, Politico (where I offered a skeptical assessment), and elsewhere. But rather than embodying the future of the Republican Party, Paul embodies its past, the postwar conservative era when Ronald Reagan could proclaim that “the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism,” when National Review founder William F. Buckley Jr. could publish a conspectus of his later work under the subtitle “Reflections of a Libertarian Journalist,” and young blue-blazered Republicans of the Alex P. Keaton variety wore out their copies of Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/04/defused/556934/

Will conservatism return or is it dead?

 

Military Spouses: Lead Us Out Of The Quagmire!

I am an unashamed antiwar supporter.  I have written about this over the life of IST….I have asked question of why we allow all these wars to continue……and after 11 years I still have not gotten any good answers….for that matter I have very little antiwar supporters visiting and commenting……

I have offered up several scenarios that I think could revive the antiwar movement….but most of my ideas are pretty radical and would put a strain on society……

This is a piece written for the Future of Freedom Foundation, a pro-Libertarian think tank ….but that aside this is a good piece and makes some very good points.

For the life of me, I just can’t figure out why the American people do not rise up en masse against the forever wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan in which the United States has been embroiled for more than 15 years. After all, by now everyone must surely realize, despite the superficial rhetoric to the contrary, that U.S. soldiers are not over there killing and dying to defend our country or protect our freedoms here at home.  Continue Reading………

Source: Military Spouses: Lead Us Out of the Quagmire! – The Future of Freedom Foundation

This needs to be read and thought about….we need to end this cycle of war after war….after……..the cycle continues.

A Drive-By Tomahawking

I has been a week since the US attacked the Syrian airfield….and the analysis is still going on……personally, I want answers and I believe that most of my readers do also (but I could be mistaken for some want to believe).

Since the attack by the US on the Syrian airfield I have been trying to give all sides of the debate…..this is a piece I found on the Libertarian Institute website.

On Friday, the fact-checking organization weighed in on the legal debate over President Trump’s April 6 bombing of a Syrian airfield, with two essays concluding it was A-OK, constitutionally. “In some cases, people saying Trump needed congressional approval have gone too far” Politifact’s Lauren Carroll pronounces. For instance, Rep. Marc Pocan’s (D-WI) claim that there’s “no legal basis” for the strikes rates a full-on, needle-in-the-red “FALSE” on P-fact’s patented “Truth-o-Meter.” Tom Kertscher of Politifact Wisconsin asserts that: “For limited military activities like the missile strike, presidents can send in forces without approval from Congress.” You see, while the president may not have the legal authority to unilaterally launch a full-scale war, he can—if he thinks it’s a good idea, and assures himself it won’t bog us down—order up acts of war that don’t rise to the level of war: a light dusting of cruise missiles—a micro-aggression, constitutionally speaking.

Source: Weak Legal Pretext for Trump’s Drive-By Tomahawking – The Libertarian Institute

But with all the info available was this strike necessary?

Knowing that the evidence refuted the claim that the Syrian Air Force was responsible for the April 4, 2017 chemical nerve agent attack, the National Security Council (NSC) manufactured a false claim that intelligence actually supported [President Donald J. Trump’s] decision to attack Syria, and…to accuse Russia of being either complicit or a participant in an alleged atrocity,” according to Theodore A. Postol, an MIT Professor of Science , Technology and National Security, who has previously served as a scientific adviser to the Chief of Naval Operations.

Postol’s conclusions were set forth in three successive reports. In the first, the renowned scientist concluded that the photographic evidence of a bomb crater relied upon by the White House does not support the conclusion “the crater was created by a munition designed to disperse sarin after it was dropped from a plane.” To the contrary, the evidence “clearly indicates that the munition was almost certainly placed on the ground with an explosive on top of it that crushed the container so as to disperse the alleged load of sarin.

Source: MIT Scientist: “White House Lied, Manufactured Evidence to Justify Tomahawk Missile Strike.” – LA Progressive

I believe the only way that we can have a overview of the situation is to check out all sides of the debate….

The missiles used were Tomahawk missiles….and according to most reports all 59 did not hit their target, there is a bit of confusion on just how many……but this then leads us to ask….if the missiles were not that accurate or were somehow intercepted then just how effective can they be?

While researching (something everyone should do before they voice an ignorant opinion) I found a Defense site that questions the Tomahawks existence….

As the U.S. military prepares to do combat in an increasingly threatening and competitive global arena, the Navy’s Tomahawk cruise missile may not be “the weapons system solution for the future,” the vice chairman of the joint chiefs of staff said April 13.

“I think we have to decide what’s next after Tomahawk,” said Air Force Gen. Paul Selva at an Air Force Association breakfast in Arlington, Virginia. “My gut tells me, as I look at the requirements a decade or more out, that a subsonic, non-stealthy, low-maneuvering, unitary warhead may not be the answer.”

Source: Senior Pentagon Official Casts Doubt on Tomahawk Missiles Future

I will admit that I do hold some of the same beliefs on foreign policy as the Libertarians…..I do have a problem with their domestic stuff so they are out as far as support during elections…..some politicos need to embrace their issues on foreign policy but as it is today we have NO opposition to continuous war….the voices that are there are sidelined by accusations and innuendo perpetrated by the MSM.

Please let me know what you think about this situation.