Is There Anything or Anyone for Libertarians at CPAC?
The GOP's nervous breakdown continues apace.
This year's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) reflected a Republican Party in mid-meltdown. The conference comes on the heels of Mitt Romney calling for a brokered party convention in order to stop the improbable rise of frontrunner Trump. The Donald retaliated by cancelling his highly anticipated appearance—much to the delight of rivals Cruz, Rubio, and the #NeverTrump crowd, who attended in full force.
Libertarian-leaning conservatives made up a large portion of the #NeverTrump-ers. But while they found it easy to oppose the tariff-loving, torture-advocating, wall-building billionaire, the tough question was whether there was anyone at all worth supporting.
Ted Cruz openly courts the libertarian vote. But does the Texas senator's tough stance on immigration kill any chance of libertarian support for his candidacy? Will libertarians hold their collective noses and support Marco Rubio, despite his seemingly boundless zeal for saber rattling? Is Kasich a viable lesser-of-all-the-evils candidate for the free market crowd?
Disaffected libertarians at CPAC considered the option of casting a ballot for the eventual Libertarian Party nominee—or not voting at all. What's inevitable: losing one's sense of humor about participating in yet another election year filled with lousy presidential candidates.
Run time 3:39.
Produced by Todd Krainin. Hosted by Matt Welch. Cameras by Krainin and Joshua Swain.
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hot chicks?
No. Not even hot chicks. The purity level at CPAC is too low. No open borders no matter what, no nothing.
Wha? The cutest girl in the vid was a Gary Johnson supporting libertarian.
CPAC, come for the deep dish, stay for the circumcisions.
Bris.
What do we make of the early returns? Has there been a shift to Cruz? Maine and Kansas, those are certainly two very different states.
How much of Maine has reported?
No.
""Ted Cruz openly courts the libertarian vote. But does the Texas senator's tough stance on immigration kill any chance of libertarian support for his candidacy?""
I think the more important question is, "how do self-described libertarians REALLY feel about immigration?"... something this magazine rarely asks its readers.
If people could do me a favor, please go here and answer this one-question poll on the subject. Thanks
I sense a small problem that may skew the results in your wording of the answers
Feel free to post your own improved version.
The only improvement I can think of is replacing the first and third questions with photographs: a group of sad, adorable third-world children with their grandmother versus a proudly waving American flag, and then the boring unpopular middle option that can't be expressed with an emotionally laden image
If the flag by itself isn't emotional enough, maybe have a blonde, barefoot, and pregnant woman holding it in a wheat field
A new version, con los gr?ficos
I loled.
Literally loled.
Winner.
I couldn't read her ribs.
Nah! Just plow through his bias and do the right thing.
That kind of talk is uncalled for. Show some class!
I'll tell you. I'm a classy guy. You should believe me. I'm rich. People love me. They don't love Gilmore. He biases his polling. Ask anybody. He's the one with no class. That's why I'm leading. I'm the one who can make H&R great again.
Do you have a book I can buy?
Newsletter. Will that do?
"" plow through his bias and do the right thing.""
= Vote 100 times!
Me?
*A* problem?
Oooooh! It appears you can vote moar than once. Come on Paul supporters, let's stuff the ballot.
Because the important thing is to "Win", not actually find out what people really think.
very bright.
We have a consensus. The science is settled.
B is closest to my thinking, but I'd rather disincentivize illegals - ie, kill the welfare state - than incentivize immigrants.
Nothing wrong with people wanting to come here, but none of them - or the natives - should be receiving welfare
I'm thinking reconquista might not be so bad - are the Mexicans better on liberty than DC?
That's a joke, right?
I don't have the exact polling at the moment, but Mexican and Latin American immigrants prefer socialism to capitalism at a rate of something like 75%.
They come here because our welfare is better than the welfare in their home countries, and anyone who believes otherwise is delusional or a liar.
What could go wrong when you let a bunch of socialists, en masse, without assimilation?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Weydemeyer
http://scholarship.law.marquet.....ntext=mulr
I could't agree more. If we didn't have ridiculous amounts of social programs (see northern europe for examples), then the ones who wanted to come here, would want to come here for ideological reasons (i.e. they agreed with the basic tenets of US society) instead of to try to take advantage of the system.
I dig the concept of a reader poll, but with nothing but decency to keep peeps from voting more than once...
It'd be interesting if Reason conducted occasional polls of registered users. At least then the effort of creating socks might discourage the lazy from trying to skew the polls.
Truth be told, the open borders thing is the only issue where I differ from the "conventional" libertarian stance. We have a process for foreigners to come in and turn themselves into U.S. citizens, and that really needs to be modernized and streamlined. And at the same time, we need vigilant enforcement of our borders to keep illicit cheap labor in check, not to mention keep an eye on any terrorists trying to smuggle in people-killing stuff.
No! You're not a Real Libertarian (TM) if you don't support a world with zero borders and heroin available at every 7/11.
Everyone knows that utopia can only happen when we erase all these imaginary lines and give people the ability to shoot up on their lunch break.
So long as they do their job when they return to work what do I care?
I'm fine with people shooting up on their lunch break as long as their boss is ok with it.
I still don't think we should have open borders
Well, a lot of us believe in sovereign borders. There are a some 'open borders no matter what' kooks. Not sure how all that balances out in percentages.
Looks like it there are a lot of open borders kooks here. Or Cytotoxic (a flapping headed, beady-eyed Canadian) voted hundreds of times.
What if Trump got the nomination & turned out to be an awful candidate in the gen'l election? Was the Democratic Party in IL destroyed when LaRouchians got their nomination by primary for Lt. Gov. & Sec'y of State?
""What if Trump got the nomination & turned out to be an awful candidate in the gen'l election? ""
What has he been in the primaries so far?
His "awfulness" is his charm.
Not for the vast majority of independents who hate him.
Lucky for him there aren't enough independents to matter anymore.
The last three elections have been all about base turnout, and this one is no different. Hell, Mitt Romney won independents 2-to-1 and look how much good that did him.
I was living in Illinois when that happened. What a sweet joke that was. It wasn't that Lyndon was on a roll, it was that the other candidates were such weak lackey nobodies that nobody bothered to pull the lever in the primaries.
Um...
Is CPAC held in Mexico? Are there pot-smoking hookers there?
(Note: I'm riffing on a remark of John's - I am not trying to disrespect the people of Mexico.)
Some, you assume, are good people.
If that were true, you'd ditch the tiny sombrero.
Shame on you, Matthew Q. Welch, for the gotcha on the trade kid.
His middle name is Quincy? AMAZEBALLS
I thought it was Quint.
Quagmire
Qbert
#&$*?!
I could prolly bring myself to vote for Cruz if he chose Paul as his running mate. Even that wouldn't do it for the rest.
That would be awesome and it sounds almost plausible
I'd vote for that ticket.
Odds are the running mate for the nominee will not be someone else who sought the nomination. Not sure why everyone thinks it will be.
It's going to have to be a woman.
I'm thinking Carly Fiorina, Nikki Haley (although she endorsed Rubio), or Mia Love.
Because it happens semi-regularly, and this was a huge field, so there are fewer non-candidates to choose from. Christie seems to be angling hard for VP, and Cruz/Rubio could be a fusion ticket to beat Trump.
Free pap smears?
This actually appeared on CBS. I remember nearly falling out of my chair when I saw it.
Free Papist smears?
Of him or by him?
All within the pope, nothing outside the pope, nothing against the pope.
Who are you, Henry VIII?
Libertarians' seeming forgiveness of illegal immigration overlooks that public property is ONLY public for those living there or visiting. The basic view that illegals are trespassing in some fashion is basically true but seems to be totally ignored by most libertarians in their arguments about immigration.
I'll even say that the view public property is public for anyone in the world is a socialist view for those supporting open borders
One of the problems with non-libertarians is that they view my paychecks as public property.
I don't really differentiate between American citizens and non-citizens when it comes to stealing money out of my paychecks--and I'd appreciate it if people would stop using being an American citizen as if being one somehow gave you the right to parasite off of my paychecks.
Go educate your own children. Go pay for your own parents in their old age. Being an American citizen doesn't entitle you to anything except the right to vote. Being an American citizen certainly doesn't give you the right to treat my paychecks as "public property"--whatever the hell that means.
I've got a term for people who think they're entitled to "public property" because they're American citizens. I call them "welfare queens".
They are entitles to it because supposedly their assets were used to create, maintain, and even obtain this public property. Taxation may surely force all to contribute to the maintenance in some manner but I don't support taxation.
Are you anywhere to be seen in the video up top?
How do you feel about "putting trade back in America"?
Depends what that means . I believe in true free markets, not markets where Trump-like people tell me whom I can trade with or how.
You should. Citizens can rob you by voting. Non-Citizens can't (at least with decent voter ID).
Yes non-citizens can only be receivers of stolen property. Citizens can be both receivers of stolen property and accessories to theft.
Is it really true for national borders in a way that it isn't for state or local ones? If someone moves from Chicago to New York, he didn't pay for Central Park, but no one objects to his using it. If he starts living here, he will start paying for it. How is that less true, say, for someone moving from Ciudad Juarez than it is for someone moving from El Paso?
Yes, he moves from one state to another .... he doesn't illegally trespass from one state to another.... but if states wanted harder rules, I'm not sure I'd totally oppose 🙂
We have "taken trade out of America" ans sent it overseas"?
And Trump will be able "to put trade back in America"?
The Democrats aren't even that retarded.
"The Democrats aren't even that retarded."
They're going to consider that as a challenge.
Did you see that guy in the video clip?!
He sounds like this guy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3UCAQSFxCQ
You take all the capitalism out of the Republican party, and they've got nothin' but the Second Amendment left.
Trump people are the zombie horde--and they'e not the fast moving zombies either.
Yeah, the Trump guy was a dim bulb, but choosing him as the representative Trump supporter is just another cheap, sleazy way to sneer at Trump.
It's like the media is on Trump's payroll. All their transparent sleaze against Trump always leaves me defending Trump, and I've seen a lot of other people say the same thing here. Trump is a douchebag, but the media always pulls the greater douche.
"Yeah, the Trump guy was a dim bulb, but choosing him as the representative Trump supporter is just another cheap, sleazy way to sneer at Trump."
Excuse me. I'll try to sneer at him in much more sophisticated ways in the future.
Actually, I make a habit of riding capitalism's enemies for being dumb as dirt every chance I get.
I've always said that progressives talking about how the economy works are dumber than creationists talking about evolution, but I'm willing to enlarge that tent big enough to include Trump fanboys too.
Half the reason why I've consistently opposed ObamaCare, bank bailouts, progressives, unions, climate change alarmists, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, et. al. is because they're the enemies of capitalism and free trade, and if Trump and his fanboys want to oppose free trade, he can get in line with the rest of them to be ridiculed for being embarrassingly stupid, too.
The world has no end of retarded people to dig up and use to discredit people by association.
Sounds like you've never seen the Obamaphone Lady:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpAOwJvTOio
Trump supporters are already discredited by supporting Trump (which is their own choice, not something the media unfairly paints them as).
That was one or two election cycles ago. You're supposed to forget that. Conservative Republicans are Hitler.
And Trump is Stalin.
Maybe they could go to War and destroy each other.
"God bless CPAC." He is such a putz.
The real question is "Is there anything for libertarians anywhere?" Do any major party candidates ever manage to get even 10% of a primary vote proposing cutting spending? We seem to have to choose between various plans to either 'stop the Demoncrat gutting of defense spending' or 'stop the Rethuglican war on the poor'.
Never mind that neither support for the poor (social engineering) spending nor defense (empire building) spending has decreased by a nickel due to these supposed vicious and evil 'spending cuts'
I know I sound like a broken record sometimes, but chalking up gay marriage and less illegal pot as libertarian victories while Government grows exponentially every year is a lot like bragging about the wonderful deck chair you managed to snag as the Titanic slides under the waves.
The Titanic is sinking no matter what.
We are at the bottom of the Kondratieff cycle. An era when the fighting between the INs and the OUTs is most vicious.
As to pot. There will be no victory until pot is rescheduled. My estimate is that pot fully utilized could eliminate 25% to 75% of medical costs. That is no small thing. Doctors, hospitals, and pharmacies hurt worst.
""pot fully utilized could eliminate 25% to 75% of medical costs."
uh, what?
most medical costs are tied up in "end of life care" for senior citizens. Most people end up costing the healthcare system more money in the last 5-10 years of their life than in the previous 60+. 10% or so of the sickest people in the country suck up 75% of the spending.
What does weed have to do with any of that?
Well let us start with two.
Cancer costs $100 bn a year. Zero that out.
Cannabis could eliminate treatment (other than cannabis) for 2/3rds of diabetics. That is another $100 bn.
You start looking at all these things and it adds up.
Here is a place to look:
http://www.letfreedomgrow.com/.....ITIONS.pdf
The congregation of my synagogue is better educated on cannabis than most of the people who read Reason.
It may have something to do with Rabbi Kahn who had/has a dispensary in DC. He was our rabbi a while back.
Cannabis reduces nausea and pain from chemo. It does not cure cancer. Sorry but there is no such thing as a panacea.
jarflix,
There is plenty of evidence it cures cancer in mice. There is ample annecdotal evidence it cures cancer in humans.
So why don't we do human trials and settle the issue? That would be illegal.
=========
Cannabinoids regulate EVERY function in the body. Every damn one. Why wouldn't it be a panacea?
=========
Donal Tashkin found that cannabis smoking is prophylactic against lung cancer. Why haven't larger studies been done to confirm or falsify that fact? Good question.
Ah. But there is more. A study was done re: cannabis and chemo or radiation for cancer. The study found that cannabis reduced the amount of radiation required for a cure. It also reduced the amount of chemo required for a cure.
That study was peer reviewed. I can't find that now. But here is a page full of links.
Cannabis and Cancer, Pt. 2: The Triple Threat of THC, CBD, and Conventional Treatment on Cancer
Study away. I am opposed to prohibition, and it is certainly possible cannabis can have more medical uses than are currently recognized, but panaceas and perpetual motion machines are nonsense.
OK. You don't know how the cannabinoid system works in mammals (esp. humans).
I applaud your anti-prohibition stance.
OTOH your ignorance is appalling. Not surprising. The cannabinoid system is still not deeply taught in most medical schools. And odds are you did not go to a medical school that taught the subject nor did you do your own research. You are probably just repeating conventional wisdom.
And I admit it does seem impossible. None the less we have plenty of animal studies confirming what I have said. Does it work the same in humans? It wold be good to find out from research that is better conducted that what you get from the gypsy drug store. I await the day.
OTOH your ignorance is appalling. Not surprising. The cannabinoid system is still not deeply taught in most medical schools. And odds are you did not go to a medical school that taught the subject nor did you do your own research. You are probably just repeating conventional wisdom.
I make no claim to medical training. I just do not believe in magic. Panaceas are magic. You are claiming cannabis is a panacea. In support of that claim you link studies showing that chemicals in cannabis have effects on various diseases and body systems. I do not have refute the studies to refute your claim as the studies do not support your claim.
Showing that cannabinoids can increase the effectiveness of certain treatments for certain cancers does not even sort of imply that cannabis is a panacea. The fact that the studies do not report miracle cures for the groups using cannabinoids, but instead report incremental improvements in treatment response, seems, in fact, counter to your claim which was that legalizing cannabis could reduce medical costs by 25-75% and Cancer costs $100 bn a year. Zero that out. which I took to mean cannabinoids would eliminate cancer.
Endocannabinoid science is not magic.
But of course science that you do not know is magic.
You ignorance is appalling. Your failure to make even a feeble attempt to rectify that given all the links I have left here is worse.
===========
Cancer is about 7% of medical costs in the US. $100 bn.
There are many other things that cannabis is useful for. It can eliminate 2/3rds of diabetes treatment. That is worth another $100 bn.
So we are up to 14% with just two diseases.
You say " You ignorance is appalling. Your failure to make even a feeble attempt to rectify that given all the links I have left here is worse.
in response to my statement
" I do not have refute the studies to refute your claim as the studies do not support your claim.
Showing that cannabinoids can increase the effectiveness of certain treatments for certain cancers does not even sort of imply that cannabis is a panacea. The fact that the studies do not report miracle cures for the groups using cannabinoids, but instead report incremental improvements in treatment response, seems, in fact, counter to your claim which was that legalizing cannabis could reduce medical costs by 25-75% and Cancer costs $100 bn a year. Zero that out. which I took to mean cannabinoids would eliminate cancer."
I agree that one of us is showing appalling ignorance here. You are claiming something extreme and unique and for evidence showing studies that report something quite ordinary about these substances. Helpful in treating =/= Zeroing out cancer.
Claiming that cannabis use will "zero out" medical spending on cancer is a belief in magic, not matter how efficacious maybe.
The Human Endocannabinoid System Meets the Inflammatory Cytokine Cascade
and a number of videos are available here. The ads are annoying. The text is by Dennis Hill, a biochemist.
Dennis Hill's Story: Beating Prostate Cancer With Cannabis Oil
Video that explains the endocannabinoid system. The first 45 seconds are crap. Keep your audio turned down (about 8 minutes).
The Endocannabinoid System [ECS]
And note the connection to obesity.
Marijuana Drastically Shrinks Aggressive Form Of Brain Cancer, New Study Finds
Well this next one debunks the whole idea. Except that the comments are cogent and vicious.
Hype Around Marijuana As Treatment For Cancer Unwarranted
This crap again?
THC has some demonstrated some tendency to solw the rate of lung cancer growth in mice. The is no evidence of a cure. None.
Slowed growth is not nothing. But don't lose sight of the very important and real effects to chase some utopian pipe dream.
Libertarians need to give up their holier-than-thou circle jerk over ideological purity and learn the value of incrementalism and compromise.
Thirty years ago was there anything in this country for progressives? Nope, I'd argue there was even less for them than there's ever been for libertarians. And now they control the culture, academia, a big part of corporate America, and basically the entire federal bureaucracy.
Progressives learned to take small victories, build on them, entrench themselves wherever they could, and maintain pressure. They voted for whomever was closest to their ideal and stayed organized. Sure, some of that frustrated the bomb-throwers and true believers, but now they have quite a bit to show for that strategy.
Libertarians COULD have done the same thing in the same amount of time. And they still can. But will they?
Probably not. Because while progressives are mostly idealists at their core, libertarians are mostly nihilists. And idealism motivates far better than nihilism.
I agree with you. But legal pot is not an incremental step to reducing spending by Leviathan. My point is that unless we can find a path toward shrinking Government we are headed for a crash.
No, not at all. Legalizing pot is a stupid distraction that libertarians should not be bothering with right now.
As you said, it does nothing to shrink the government, nor does it politically empower libertarians anyway. Progressives are the ones who really get the credit for pot legalization; libertarians are their useful idiots on this issue. Ditto open borders.
Legalizing pot is a stupid distraction that libertarians should not be bothering with right now.
We are winning on that issue. Doesn't incrementalism require victories?
And on top of that legalization has forced the left to properly evaluate the economic issues including how black markets work (same as other markets - with private enforcers).
The trick (and not a small trick) is to get lefties to apply that thinking to all markets.
A lie. The LP ended the draft and forced hemp legalization just as definitely as the conservative Prohibition Party unleashed totalitarians with guns and hatchets and the Communist Party and its surrogates brought us the income tax. The DemoGOP's own Supreme Court had to be dragooned into declaring that gays have individual rights to keep those voters from having to vote libertarian to assert those rights. Conservatives want you aware of a lot of things, JUST NOT LP SPOILER VOTES.
Fanatical asset-forfeiture proibitionism crashed the economy in the Hoover, Bush-Reagan and Bush Junior administrations. The record is everywhere in the Google News Archives and on microfilms at every public and college library. Even the Presidents' Papers record the basic facts.
The progressives have been winning since the dismal year of 1913, with a short downturn after WWII. We've had about 100 years of the advancement of progressivism. I tend not to count the "Reagan Revolution" because that simply was the third stage of the spread - the use of endless borrowing to give the illusions of prosperity. The debt quadrupled under Reagan, and has grown EIGHTEENFOLD since then.
So, incrementalism WOULD HAVE been great circa 1980. That was almost 40 years ago. Now there's no time for incrementalism. We're about $20,000,000,000,000 in debt, with about $40,000,000,000,000-$70,000,000,000,000 of unfunded entitlements further in debt, with masses of parasites demonstrating for much, much more.
Perhaps, at some point, people will come to the realization that we're right at the brink. . The Tea Party was the first shot over the bow, now we've got Trump. Times are very unstable, and it's just the tip of the iceberg. What come after Trump will be very interesting.
In short, it's too fucking late to do much of anything. We're now destined to traverse through some very dark times. The situation became desperate in the early 2000's, and all we got was Medicare Part D from the Republicans, and many wars from both the Republicans and Democrats, and about $7,000,000,000,000 in new debt since 2008. Incrementalism is moot. The shit is going to hit the fan and incivility is coming. There's not much to intellectualize about it.
Small L libertarians need their own Trump. Someone to affirm their anti-conservative bigotry 24/7.
This year they are voting Trump.
Christianofascism calls for the initiation of force--especially against gays, women, mohammedans, foreigners... The libertarian position is nothing of the sort. I couldn't care less if all of them were to ascend in Rapture by lunchtime. It is their bigoted ideology of force and violence I oppose, not their disgusting personalities. If this be treason, make the most of it!
Kasich is a fucking fascist. Fuck him.
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I still do not believe The Don is a real candidate as opposed to another John Anderson/Ross Perot Nixon-subsidized puff of chaff. As chaff to keep the LP below media radar, The Don cannot be beat. Something like a fifth of what was once a libertarian magazine's coverage has gone to Drumpf, with as much again dedicated to other looter prohibitionists. No coverage to speak of goes to Libertarian hopefuls. Instead we get the same damn republican in Libertarian drag who ran a pitiful campaign, and a programmer who just bought his Libertarian mask two months ago. Austin Petersen--especially good compared to the DemoGOP slate--has been mentioned, what, once?
" But does the Texas senator's tough stance on immigration kill any chance of libertarian support for his candidacy?"
Nope
RE: Is There Anything or Anyone for Libertarians at CPAC?
There can never be any libertarian thought in the republican or democratic parties.
Otherwise freedom might break out in the Union of Soviet Socialist Slave States of America.
Who in their right mind would want to break the shackles of socialism when everything is going so well for the ruling elitist filth enslaving us?
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Yes.
There are constitutional conservatives.
Politics begin at the state and local levels. You can't just burst out into national politics. Only constitutional conservatives believe that the state and local govt's (that you might be able to win seats in) is where decisions should be made.
Great Article
Great Article