Gary Johnson

So what's everyone's thoughts about Gary Johnson? Do you know who he is?

I can't wait to see you're opinion Bal

 

Letlovin

OK you are talking about I’m presuming Gary Earl Johnson the 2016 Libertarian Party presidential nominee? (although the LP website still seems to be asking who people want).

I know very little about the man but I think I’ve made it plain that I dislike the LP platform and policies which all seem designed to make the wealthy even more powerful and influential and so create even more inequality in what is already and dangerously unequal system.

Thing is that the free market ideas that they base their views on are fundamentally and dangerously flawed and not one libertarian I’ve meet can actually defend them from criticisms that seem to fatally undermine them.

And that my old mate includes you.

 

I feel the same about him as all libertarians - I love the progressive, liberal attitude on social issues and I hate the laissez-faire economic philosophy.

 

I voted for him in 2012.

 

deviate

Why?

 

He climbed Mt. Everest

 

6

Are you saying you think deviate voted for him because he climbed Mt Everest or is this just an aside?

How is his politic related to it?

 

Politics aside, scaling Everest is impressive regardless of who you are. As a recreational mountaineer, I think that's bad ass.

Will I vote for him? I'm not sure yet.

 

Feel the Johnson should be his slogan

 

Haha it really should be.

I am contemplating voting for Johnson if it is a trump vs hillary race - but i'm not sure. There is so much i disagree with him on in regards his pro business stance. I am all for a candidate that wants to enable small businesses to grow but his support of large corporations is the complete opposite of where i stand.

However, i agree with him on social issues - in that respect he is certainly the lesser of 3 evils, plus the libertarian party has more support this election than any third party candidate in recent history so wouldnt mind throwing my support behind that.

But i align with Jill Stein on the majority of issues so will probably lean more towards her.

 

6

As a climber and runner I also am impressed but I don’t think political sense has a connection to physical achievement – does the fact I’ve run a marathon make my left wing views any more acceptable to a right winger I would expect or want that?

 

Oh please don’t Mel

Why?

Basically the stance of right wing libertarians to social issues is that they don’t care as long as it doesn’t cost them anything it’s not about making things better or tackling the issues it’s just that they don’t care.

They don’t care if someone is homosexual but they will do nothing to tackle bigotry or discrimination and it’s the same with race they don’t care if someone is black but if a shop keeper wants to ban blacks from his shop that’s ok also.

They don’t care about abortion but won’t fund it, as with other healthcare issues.

In education it will be fine if you have money because to them the parents should be responsibility for all funds expended for their children's education, there would be little or no government funding.

Welfare would be phased out to be replaced with a voluntary system.

The stance on free trade is like the present system (which overly favours wealth) but on steroids.

In fact basically all there ‘social issue’ policies would vastly favour the few to the detriment of everyone else.

 

Mel


How about Jill Stein of the US Green Party?

 

Obviously he will not win, so why do people go to all the effort of playing that game and believing that some non-existent change will come through politics? It blows my fucking mind.

 

Read the last sentence of my last post I voted for Jill Stein in 2012 and probably will again.

I actually forgot how much I hated Johnson's stance on education - he actually supports voucher programs that can be used at private and religious schools.

And I think free trade is the single most important issue facing my generation. Johnson os for, i am against. Strongly.

I dont think i will vote for him based on those two issues alone, but i did consider it because it is exciting to see a third party make so much progress

 

I already said my Mt. Everest statement was politics aside. I posted that after I did a quick research of the guy. And I agree that while politics and physical achievement have little connection to each other, I respect people who put the work in to do great personal achievements whether they agree with my ideas or not.

I'm pretty sure most people who vote for 3rd party realize this. 3rd party candidates have their usefulness in throwing a vote at, in order to keep the belligerent the vote-or-die fanatics at bay. I've been vilified and guilt-tripped over not voting in the past. Occasionally they get air time on TV, and the articles they write are sometimes taken into consideration by lots of people who don't vote for them.

 

Sorry Mel



I was so shocked by the thought of you voting for Johnson that I went temporarily blind and missed the last line of your post.

 

Recently Johnson has gotten a lot of publicity and actually made the public aware that a Libertarian party actually exists.

Which is pretty cool except for the fact that Gary isn't as much of a Libertarian after all. He's a non-libertarian centrist. Apparently he doesn't believe in the Non Aggression Principle, which is the foundation of libertarian ideology; he now supports mandatory vaccines through the force of government, after being firmly against it for a long time. He also supports a carbon tax Massive government taxing schemes are not libertarian at all. A supporter of Black Lives Matter, which has done more to destroy racial relations and black communities as a whole than it has done to help out. Supports TPP. His vice president Bill Weld is even worse since he's a complete neocon who supported the Iraq war, supported gun control measures, and endorsed Obama. The libertarian party is a joke.

Yet today, he probably just killed his entire campaign by admitting he didn't know anything about Aleppo.

 

Waste of a vote. Plus, he doesn't know where Aleppo is. It's nice that the libertarian party exists, but it's still a joke of a party with unacceptable isolationst views.

 

you need a new tag line this one is so worn out that it is faded, the socks are showing through the soles, and the laces have broken off at the broken loop above the tongue.

just a quick large scale overview, hillary and donald cant defend themselves from criticisms either. oh sure they can lie about and ignore them, but unless you are brain dead you can see that both are no better.