Gary Johnson on SOPA: "There are NO problems with the Internet that we want the government to try to fix!"
The campaign homepage of former two-term New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson remains blacked out in protest of SOPA and PIPA. On the other side of the blackout is a short post about the bills:
The article below from the LA Times is just one of many today reporting that we – millions of Americans who see the Internet as a last bastion of freedom – are maybe, just maybe, getting Congress attention about two very bad ideas: SOPA and PIPA.
Kudos to Wikipedia and the thousands of other sites who took action to let people know of these threats to Internet freedom, the flow of information, and the free market. As I have said, there are NO problems with the Internet that we want the government to try to fix!
This evening, as millions of parents find themselves answering their kids' homework questions without the help of Wikipedia or any number of other sites that have changed the world, I hope everyone will visit Wikipedia, Google.com, or other sites to sign petitions or otherwise let Congress know that we want the government to keep its hands off the Internet.
Presidential candidates who have taken a firm stance against SOPA/PIPA: Johnson (L), Rep. Ron Paul (R) and Buddy Roemer (R). Candidates who have taken a tepid stance: President Barack Obama (D). Candidates who have taken no stance: Everybody else.
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The campaign homepage of former two-term New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson remains blacked out in protest
Three people notice.
You are a generous person.
I'm all about giving.
I'd assume Santorum is against SOPA.. it might wipe away his very existence!
You said "Santorum" and "wipe away" lol
.
that was the joke
That possibility had occurred to me.
Candidates who have taken a tepid stance: President Barack Obama (D).
And Drudge tells me that his weighing in has cost him some Hollyweird donations.
I'm not pro-SOPA, but to say that rampant theft is not a problem that should be fixed by the government is not libertarian; it's anarchistic.
the back end of your comment gains you full dork status - "fixed by the govt"? Really? The govt is not competent enough to manage the seating arrangement for a two-person dinner, but you think it has the capacity to tackle web-based issues?
Who should stop theft? Are you forming an intellectual property enforcement militia? Protecting private property is one of the most basic reason for having government.
I never denied anyone else the use of the things I have copied. I never even took credit for them.
If true, that puts libertarian anarchists in an awkward position.
So... being against government intrusion into the internet = anarchism.
Got it. Thanks for the info.
Being against enforcement of the law = anarchism, but I do appreciate your straw man argument.
Not if the law is tyrannical. Try again.
Intellectual property rights are tyrannic?
The right for others to control (by way of Fed gov't enforcement) the way I use my hardware, IS tyrannical.
Just because I happened to arrange my bits in the same or similar order you have, doesn't mean I "stole" your IP.
The market exists to see the most productive and efficient distribution of scarce resources to meet consumer desires. Once something is able to be digitized, it can be multiplied an infinite amount of times, at no cost, therefore, it is no longer a scarce resource, and not subject to real market forces.
You cannot own that which does not have mass.
What subdork said.
Conflating theft with unsanctioned copying is not libertarian; it's asinine.
Many libertarians don't believe in intellectual property rights for some reason.
I do think government should enforce piracy laws, but only against the actual pirates and not against user content upload sites. Even Pirate Bay, which flaunts itself as a platform for piracy, is not providing the copyrighted content itself. It would be like cracking down on a shipbuilder because their ships are used for actual piracy.
Theft implies the original possessor lost their property. IP Violations DO NOT equal theft.
here's the real takeaway from this: DC has become so caught up in its own hubris and the public has become so stupid/dependent on govt that some folks actually think that passing a law will stop bad things from happening on the interwebs.
Gary Johnson
That thar dead horse ain't commin' back, no matter how hard you flog 'im....
Neither is George Wallace. You don't let that stop you.
Is Slap an actual fascist? I'm genuinely clueless on this.
He's a American Renaissance-style paleoconservative as best I can tell.
No need to be fancy.
He's a run-of-the-mill white nationalist fucktard.
Gary Johnson didn't do so well in NH either. That fred Karger guy beat him again
Mitt Romney
97,532 39.3%
7
Ron-paul_50
Ron Paul
56,848 22.9
3
Jon-huntsman_50
Jon Huntsman
41,945 16.9
2
Newt-gingrich_50
Newt Gingrich
23,411 9.4
?
Rick-santorum_50
Rick Santorum
23,362 9.4
?
Rick-perry_50
Rick Perry
1,766 0.7
?
Others_50
Others Show all Show-more-arrow
3,621 1.5
?
Buddy-roemer_50
Buddy Roemer
945 0.4
?
Others_50
Total Write-ins
744 0.3
?
Michele-bachmann_50
Michele Bachmann
349 0.1
?
Others_50
Fred Karger
346 0.1
?
Others_50
Kevin Rubash
250 0.1
?
Others_50
Gary Johnson
181 0.1
?
Herman-cain_50
Herman Cain
160 0.1
?
Others_50
Jeff Lawman
125 0.1
?
Others_50
Christopher Hill
105 0.0
?
Others_50
Benjamin Linn
85 0.0
?
Others_50
Michael Meehan
51 0.0
?
Others_50
Joe Story
41 0.0
?
Others_50
Keith Drummond
41 0.0
?
Others_50
Bear Betzler
29 0.0
?
Others_50
Joe Robinson
26 0.0
?
Others_50
Stewart Greenleaf
24 0.0
?
Others_50
Mark Callahan
20 0.0
?
Others_50
Andy Martin
19 0.0
?
Others_50
Linden Swift
18 0.0
?
Others_50
Vern Wuensche
15 0.0
?
Others_50
Timothy Brewer
15 0.0
?
Others_50
John Davis
14 0.0
?
Others_50
Randy Crow
12 0.0
?
Others_50
James Vestermark
3 0.0
?
Others_50
Hugh Cort
3
Do you have a point? Other than his Tax idea, (which wouldn't pass) Johnson is the most libertarian candidate. If you want to fuck Palin and Bachmann, bully for you, but don't try to claim they or Romney are the best option for libertarians.
I'd say Ron Paul is the "most libertarian" candidate and actually has a dark horse chance of winning.
My point is Gary Johnson is a terrible campaigner who never even attempted to make a serious run.
To be fair, he dropped out of the GOP race and is vying for the LP nomination, so he's not going to do well in a GOP primary, anyway, right?
Look who GJ lost to in NH and Iowa
I doubt his totals would be any higher if he stayed in.
I should have added the "other than Paul" disclaimer.
The biggest mistake GJ made was starting his campaign late. That helped the media shut him out.
GJ was one of the frist republicans to state that he was running for president
Ron Paul's theocon attitude on abortion prevents him from being an ideal libertarian candidate. I'd much prefer to see Johnson in the white house than Ron Paul (although realistically I obviously don't see that ever happening).
I would think any real libertarian who isn't a paleolibertarian would prefer Johnson to Paul, but Paul is a cult here, so...
If you want to fuck Palin and Bachmann
Present!
Vermin Supreme?
luv that guy! something about the boot
Vermin ran as a Democrat. These are the NH GOP Primary results.
Mr Supreme recieved 831 votes in the Dem Primary finishing in 3rd behind Barack Obama and Ron Paul (as a write-in). Gary Johnson only got 181 in the GOP contest.
I was just making an excuse to bring up Vermin.
Ron Paul finished 2nd in the Democrat primary?
Yes, as a write-in.
Are the rest of those people write-ins, or were they actualy on the ballot?
I recieved my Official Republican Sample Ballot for Florida in the mail yesterday. The only people on it are (strikethroughs added by me):
Michelle Bachman
Herman Cain
Newcular Titties
Jon Huntsman
Gary Johnson
Ron Paul
Rick Perry
Mittens Romney
Rick Ass-juice
I just realized that if you say Rick Asleak, it sort of rhymes with Rick Astley.
Rick Assleak.
I fired off a message to my congress-critter yesterday. Rep. Eric Cantor, for whatever it might have been worth.
VA 7th District? My primary residence is in the 4th.
Yup. They're big districts, though, so you could be a 15-minute ride away from me or you could be 3 hours away.
I'm in the 7th, too.
Boy do I hate VA politics.
internet crime, like fraud & child porn, are 2 areas the govt has constitutional authority & responsibility to address.
No, they don't.
Which is just as well. I doubt if more than a handful of congresscritters have the faintest idea how the Internet functions. They probably couldn't create a simple spreadsheet on their own without fucking it up.
so who is responsible to address intertubz crime if not the govt?
If there's a problem, the courts can address it.
the po-po ARE officers of the court.
Police cunts are executive officers. Courts are the judicial part of the government.
Breaking news: the courts are part of the government!
of course, so the govt DOES have a required role w teh intertubez
I'm sure you'll be happy to point out which part of the Constitution gives Congress that authority.
Are you seriously in support of these bills or are you just pushing buttons? You can't possibly be in favor of what these bills empower the feds to do.
"There are NO problems with the Internet that we want the government to try to fix!"
(We'll see if my formatting really works)
Once again, Google and other entrepreneurs are better at solving our problems and serving our needs than any democratically elected politician ever will be.
When our politicians are so screwed up that they start working against our interests with things like SOPA and PIPA, Google and other entrepreneurs even offer better solutions to that problem, too!
and yet other "entrepreneurs" who are content providers also supported this legislation.
Still, I don't blame them for trying. If I could get Congress to give me hundreds of millions (or billions) of dollars through regulation, etc., I'm not sure I'd turn all that free money down myself.
It's nothing to be proud of, but I don't blame the entrepreneurs for going after our money and choices so much as I blame the politicians for giving our money and choices away. It isn't the entrepreneurs' job to protect our money and our choices--but that's the very job description of our elected representatives. That's their whole freaking job!
So, yeah, when our representatives are conspiring against us, like this, the best solution I've seen on the table is what Google and others did to bring it to the public's attention. It's a much better solution than electing different politicians over the coming years to replace the ones we have now.
Like I wrote elsewhere, "The interesting thing here for me is that rabid capitalist entrepreneurs are, again, doing a better job of representing we the people and what we want--a much better job of representing us than our politicians do.
It's a point that doesn't get made often enough. ...that Google, Home Depot, your local convenience store, and a dozen restaurants within 3 miles of where you live--all do a better job of reflecting what you want and solving your problems than anyone in Washington D.C. ever will."
of course corportist-libertarians cant fault "entrepreneurs" for gaming the system. i am surprize
Pointing out the fact that corporations do a better job of serving our interests than our politicians do doesn't make me a "corporatist", whatever that is.
If you imagine that our politicians are capable of doing that better than our corporations do, then you've got a pretty amazing imagination yourself.
National defense, criminal justice, a few other things, other than that, thinking entrepreneurs can do everything else better than government doesn't make me a corporatist anything. That's pretty much Libertarianism 101.
I'm so sick of hearing Occupy people (such as yourself?) saying that our politicians are the solution to entrepreneurs causing all of our problems; when we get a situation where entrepreneurs are actively solving a problem our politicians were manufacturing out of nowhere, we should make the most of it.
Big rent-seeking publishers are as much entrepreneurs as feudal lords were agricultural entrpreneurs.
Also, I think we should look at the comparison. Not all entrepreneurs are full of integrity and good will towards men, but compared to politicians, maybe they don't stack up so bad!
As bad as Hollywood was on this issue, I still think they're more concerned with us and better at serving our entertainment needs than any of our politicians will ever be.
"As bad as Hollywood was on this issue, I still think they're more concerned with us and better at serving our entertainment needs ..."
You haven't watched many new movies in recent decades, have you?
Or many politicians.
If you imagine that our politicians would do a better job of making movies, then you've got quite an imagination.
*provide entrainment needs.
What was their solution again?
The blacked out their name on the site, along with other entrepreneurs online.
That was much more effective than electing different politicians. Electing different politicians might have changed SOPA and PIPA after it passed...years from now? But that's hardly an effective solution.
Because of what Google and other entrepreneurs did, our elected representatives are backing down. So, yeah, Google--as an entrepreneur--represents us better than our politicians did on this issue.
Hell, doesn't it work that way with everything? I can call a hundred different entrepreneurs right now that will deliver everything from Thai food to carpet cleaning--right to my door! Show me a politician that will do any of that. Hell, I doubt my representative would even bother to return my call.
You got a problem that need solving? Don't bother calling your elected representative. Call an entrepreneur!
If there was a problem, yo, I'll solve it.