Why Republicans Should Vote Libertarian This Year, According to Libertarians
Reason TV asked presidential candidates and members of the Libertarian Party at the Libertarian National Convention in Orlando, Florida why Republicans should abandon Donald Trump and vote Libertarian this year. Watch the video above to hear their reasons.
Watch Why Democrats Should Vote Libertarian This Year by clicking here.
Produced by Zach Weissmueller and Josh Swain. Music by Podington Bear. Approximately 3:30. Subscribe to Reason TV for daily content like this.
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So good it had to be posted twice!
Oh, um. Oh.
It's an honest mistake. The Democratic and Republican parties are so alike, it's easy to confuse them.
Also, this is my first post. I've been a lurker here for some time. Howdy, folks!
Howdy! As a long time lurker you should have known what was expected out of your first post. So, your second post better includes some nude photos or we will send Cytotoxic over to your house.
Sorry, I'm stingy!
Hmm. I'll maybe welcome Cytotoxic into my home if he brings flapjacks. Now if he showed up and brought John, then we'd have a brawl party.
Flapjacks?
*chases Eastwoodchipper out of town with a torch and pitchfork*
Eastwoodchipper?
It's never too early for flapjacks!
I think I might go make some now
I was trying to be multicultural like a good little prog!
"Canadian" counts as foreign culture, right?
Foreign, yes. Culture, questionable.
Honest question. What's the difference between flapjacks and pancakes? Yeah, I know I could just google it, but I wanna hear a libertarian explanation.
One is what lumberjacks (and I'm OK) have for breakfast, the other comes out of a bottle.
What's the difference between flapjacks and pancakes?
I think an equivalent question would be what's the difference between a sub, a grinder, and a hoagie.
And I'm pretty sure the answer would be where it is made.
And don't forget griddle cakes.
C-toxic requires a nightlight and a poster of Rambo in his room, and C-bacon on his Domino's pizza. Are you really up for that?
Ugh, I hate C-bacon.
I'd sacrifice for a good cause, though.
I condemn you to Canadian bacon on all your deep-dish pizzas.
Throwing...up...in...mouth...
Cytotoxic is a delightful guest, do not let CJ scare you and whatever you do , do not send naked pictures of yourself to him. If you can find some naked pictures of Santa Clause or Bea Arthur, just send him those and that will keep him happy.
This nude painting of Bea Arthur sold for almost two million dollars, and you would surely take her to watch the submarine races.
Yeah, I'm not going to lie.
Most definitely do not send naked pics to cytotoxic. He is very, very underage.
Yeah, I think there's some laws against sending pr0n to 10 year olds.
Cytotoxic is a delightful guest, do not let CJ scare you and whatever you do , do not send naked pictures of yourself to him. If you can find some naked pictures of Santa Clause or Bea Arthur, just send him those and that will keep him happy.
What about Polly Pocket?
Marty, is that you?
Welcome.
Marty, is that you?
Maybe. *shifty eyes*
Thanks!
No, it's easy to tell Democrats and Republicans apart. the Ds say they're going to increase spending and then they increase spending. The Rs say they're going to cut spending and then they increase spending.
I stand corrected!
Actually, don't the Ds claim they're going to "gut the military" budget? At least, that's what I keep hearing from Repubs.
Yeah, one of them even said he was going to close Guantanamo.
And he even had a pen and a phone to get it done!
nice
Welcome, Clint Eastwoodchipper. Good to have you.
Thanks, Mr. Wood!
Where are my manners today? Welcome, Eastwoodchipper. We're hoping your a female, because we're still searching for that elusive female libertarian. It's like looking for the lost city of El Dorado. But if you're just another white heteronomal white CIS shitlord, you're still welcome to stay. As long as you have some orphans working a monocle mine. That's required.
Where are my manners today? Welcome, Eastwoodchipper.
Thanks!
We're hoping your a female, because we're still searching for that elusive female libertarian. It's like looking for the lost city of El Dorado. But if you're just another white heteronomal white CIS shitlord, you're still welcome to stay. As long as you have some orphans working a monocle mine. That's required.
I sincerely apologize for being another white male Kkkochsucking CIS shitlord, but alas, I was born this way.
I have considered changing my race a la Rachel Dolezal.
Well, we already have an Indian and a mulatto guy, so you're going to need to change to an Asian or something. Or, you can keep being a white guy, like 99% of us overly privileged here.
Well, we already have an Indian and a mulatto guy, so you're going to need to change to an Asian or something. Or, you can keep being a white guy, like 99% of us overly privileged here.
Well, I've always wanted to be an Eskimo.
Wanna rub noses? Aren't you Inuit?
I like your pun, and I am now stealing it, thanks.
I guess I'm late to reply. Sucks having a life. Anyway, welcome. Like the handle.
I guess I'm late to reply. Sucks having a life. Anyway, welcome. Like the handle.
Haha, I know the feeling.
Thanks!
So you like the handle too?
So Hil-Dog can win?
As if Trump would be better.
From the POV of Supreme Court nominees, I think there's no question Trump would be better.
On other issues things are either a wash or a possibly mild-improvement, so yes.
Saying "they're equally bad" is stupid. Both are bad on many issues, but Hillary is far worse on most of the biggest ones, re: Liberty.
(*of course that's depending on how much you weight "immigration"; that said, i don't think a Clinton admin would in reality be much different than an obama one in that respect - and he hasn't been nearly the open-armed savior people sometimes think of him as)
You're making the huge assumption that Trump's nominee would favor liberty. The current "Republican Justices" clearly don't. So, left/right who cares? Either way liberty takes it in the ass, it's just a question of which issues you are willing to sacrifice to the statist gods.
Nope.
If my two options are shit and more shit, I'll fight for the rebellion, thanks.
No, i'm making the observation that Hillary's would be as left-wing as possible, and would have an outsized influence on legal review which would last decades.
Its no special leap of faith to assume Trump picks people who are more judicially conservative. Its you who strains credulity claiming otherwise.
You're not "fighting for the rebellion", you're conceding defeat while protecting your ideological self-image.
As paulson said, "Better is not Good" = but better *is* better.
Hillary will pick the most anti-2nd amendment person possible. And if she gets a 2nd or 3rd shot at it, she will do the same thing. Basically, it's very possible that Hillary could stack the court with anti-2nd amendment judges. That's the highest court in the land. Who's going to protect 2nd amendment rights then?
Smith and Wesson?
That must be the correct answer.
On the plus side, we may see refederalization within our lifetime as red states tell Washington to pound sand.
Hillary's influence on legal review would be minuscule compared to her influence on illegal review. If she's elected, that tells everyone who might seek to be a leader that they should pursue a career in crime 1st.
You say that like it something to be ashamed of.
I think you've got it backwards, my friend. If you're voting for Trump or Hillary, you're the problem.
the "conceding defeat" part, yes.
Ah, yes...much better to perpetuate the system that brought us to Trump/Clinton than to fight a losing battle.
Says a lot about you Gilmore.
I'd prefer the supreme court not go uber-liberal for the rest of my life, yes.
Its crazy, i know. It says a lot about me.
Because uber-Republican is better, yes, I heard you.
You're just being silly and obtuse now.
There's no 3rd category of "libertarian" jurists. You have conservative ones who limit their rulings, and liberal ones who make expansive rulings.
Jurists aren't politicians running for office of a party. Yes, they lean in certain directions politically, but the law generally isnt a process mimicking party politics. Its more to do with a jurists view of their own role. And if you favor "limited government", you should favor conservative jurists.
Additionally =
I find it odd that the "principled 3rd party choice" here is a libertarian party which is running with candidates who seem to be making every effort to abandon any pretense of defending freedom of association, speech rights, gun rights, property rights, and so on.
IOW, i hear people rejecting trump because he's nothing but "Republican-lite"... and then turning and embracing OTHER "Republican-lite" candidates who just happen to have the right ideological imprimatur.
Johnson isn't as bad as weld, but the choice of weld just undermines whatever principles he claims might still be lurking in the background. If he doesn't have the courage to stand against something like "Coerced Speech", why should i feel he's providing any useful representation of any ideological alternative?
Johnson is NOT Republican-lite.
Trump
Oh right, "argument by nolan-chart"
Are you still using the one that says libertarians are very "pro-environmental regulation", "demand free abortions", "oppose voter ID", "reject freedom of religion".. etc.?
Not to mention that equal-weighting positions like that is utterly useless in any practical analysis.
Should i really be asked to believe that bullshit positions on a small handful of social issues (on which a president has little influence anyway) is supposed to matter as much as things like tradeforeign policy?
Besides.... as we've said a million times - electoral politics aren't an ideological beauty contest, and treating it as such is stupid.
The next president will be Trump or Clinton (*barring some unforeseen event). You can play with nolan charts all day and that doesn't change. One is unquestionably "worse" on many of the things that matter most.
If voting for Nazi-Cakes floats your boat, more power to you. Just don't pretend its helping anyone.
If you prefer to read it. The chart portrays the man's positions fairly accurately. I don't claim it's perfect. Just a tool.
Matters most to whom?
Still an arrogant, condescending prick.
And who is voting for Trump helping? You, of all people, lecturing Gary Johnson on principles. Good one.
Wow, apparently I share a lot in common with "Libertarian Activists"
Why are you posting that to me? I'm on record as saying Weld is a mistake.
Keep the supreme court from becoming a progressive wet-dream?
Did you miss that point way up at the beginning?
Planning on the Republicans losing the Senate?
I don't see how republicans in the senate have anything to do with what i said about the Supreme Court being the primary concern.
i also don't see why i should care?
Yes. Unlike Johnson, i don't think people should be compelled to engage in speech against their will, as per his "Nazi-Cakes" concession.
Despite your nolan chart, i have principles he doesn't.
Nor do I. He's wrong.
It's a single issue and it's limited to public accommodation, despite your attempts to maliciously extrapolate it to all freedom of association/speech. I watched him field the question...it was about PA. PERIOD! And he wrongly believes there should be an exception made to principle so a black man can get a hotel room at midnight in Mississippi.
One issue and he fails your libertarian purity test. How many of Trump's positions do you disagree with?
Many (to the degree i actually believe he's sincere). Fewer than hillary. but as i said, he will at least protect the court from being swamped by liberal jurists.
You seem to keep pretending that point has gone away.
I would posit that the president's opinion on things like "abortion" are comparatively meaningless as far as how 'libertarian' someone is, yet its given weight equal to "free trade" in your nolan chart.
Variance on any 2 issues would make someone "non-libertarian", but it wouldn't matter *which* ones according to that method.
It basically says little-to-nothing.
It's a tool, Gilmore. Forget the questions. Read through all his positions that I posted and tell me, based on those positions, where you'd place him on the chart.
He's unprincipled on one position. A position that happens to agree with the Left POV. That certainly doesn't make him "Republican-lite."
You should explain this to many of the people at the Libertarian party convention, who are throwing that term around
I'd vote for johnson in a heartbeat if he had any chance of winning. He doesnt.
As a 3rd party "vote-on-principle", he's a pathetic sop
In all fairness, Hillary is worse than anyone. Unless you invoke Satan or bring back Hitler, that won't change. Even the commie Bernie is better than Clinton.
Obama was worse.
But he wouldn't be worse, because "worse than Hillary" is literally impossible.
that's not true. There's definitely some bacteria out there which would be worse.
I am convinced there is a tapeworm inside Hillary that is really running things.
Ebola?
Don't care about the opinion of Trump. Hillary should be in jail. Frankly, pretty sure if anyone bothered to dig it wouldn't be hard to get the bitch on treason. She was Secretary of State and taking foreign donations through that ridiculous 'charity.' She's a criminal.
She's been a criminal and in the national spotlight for what, 25 years? Her being a criminal isn't going to hinder her.
Nobody at the DOJ has the balls to prosecute her. It's never going to happen.
Then I have no problem saying I prefer Trump to the open crook.
No, that doesn't mean I will vote for Trump if I even vote (would be a first). I wouldn't pull the lever for him. But Hillary and her family need a strong rebuke. Democrats need to be humbled after the last 8 years.
I agree, but the only humble Clinton is one on national TV apologizing for receiving a hummer, and not even then. Reptiles feel no shame.
Mr. Lizard, to the white courtesy phone.
Will Bill be better off if Hillary wins or loses?
If she wins, he gets Air Force One again, and will no doubt have outsized influence again which he'd enjoy -- but it would also come with super-surveillance and a media microscope that will keep him from dabbling in different young chubby poon whenever he wishes.
If he loses, he'll have to put up with a very bitter Hillary, whom he won't feel able to divorce because it would tarnish his legacy.
But if Hillary goes to jail, he will have effectively gotten her out of his life, while becoming a subject of much sympathy, and so much young chubby poon will want to help him overcome his tragedy with a few minutes of distraction.
I wouldn't be surprised if Bill is secretly hoping Hillary gets indicted.
I find your analysis compelling.
I've long suspected Bill wants her to lose. He's carrying on affairs still and at his age, no way in hell he wants to go back to a grinding schedule as first man and be under that spotlight.
The shit he says on the campaign trail seems designed to piss Democrats off more than anything.
I think the "Bill wanted Trump to run to pave the way for Hillary" theory is less convincing than the "Bill doesn't want President Hillary overshadowing his legacy and interfering with his babe-chasing, so he would prefer it if Trump won" theory.
"As if Trump would be better."
Yes, I think so. Why wouldn't he be better?
Because the cosmos wrote 300,000 articles saying that he would be.
Worse that is.
In deep red states, right-of-center voters who couldn't vote for Romney should have voted for Gary Johnson. It would have at least sent a message. Maybe.
I'm sort of uneasy about the choices for the LP and this whole election makes me want to jump off a bridge, but I'll gladly vote LP.
Ron Paul taped speech at Libertarian convention. Said they can't water down the message and become Republican-lites. Won't get votes doing that. Don't fuck up the message.
Doesn't sound pro-Johnson to me.
Useless to change the message to get votes. The message has to be very crisp.
Anyone who says "don't water down the message" is objectively anti-Johnson.
So six candidates qualified for tonight's debate. Don't know how many there were.
And Paul emphasized his point on that. It definitely had a point to it.
Libertarians are some nerdy motherfuckers. A number of the speakers demonstrated more coherency in explaining libertarianism than any of the three big candidates (I like McAfee, but I'm not sure how much intellectualism there is there).
So these token things they do presumably show support on some level. I'm pretty ignorant here. But it went Johnson (221), Petersen (104), Darryl Perry (105), McAfee (95), and then Feldman and McCormick (76 and 44).
Well, he's right. See what happened to his son? He tried to pander hard to SoCons, when the SoCons had their choice of 10 other candidates who were real SoCons. The result, FAIL.
Go ahead, throw your vote away
Are they going to do a Why Libertarians should vote Libertarian? I feel left out.
lol
No.
I'm used to it by now :,(
Are they going to do a Why Libertarians should vote Libertarian? I feel left out.
But do you Feel the Johnson?
I had my fill of Johnson in 2012, and boy am I ready for another!
I am the 1%
From introduction to propositions in under an hour. You will fit right in.
From introduction to propositions in under an hour. You will fit right in.
/narrows gaze
All Johnson had to do to get my vote, for the 2nd time in a row, was to not pick an east coast democrat lite for his running mate. That was it. Oh well.
All Johnson had to do to get my vote, for the 2nd time in a row, was to not pick an east coast democrat lite for his running mate. That was it. Oh well.
To be fair, I get why he did it. Problem is, both Johnson and Weld were 90's governors. Neither of them have been in office for 13 years (longer in Weld's case).
If the Reason.tv editing M.O. is to "lead with your best soundbite clip" (before the title)... that's a pretty depressing example. a bug-eyed stoner saying, "Dude, balance the budget"? Not exactly a clarion call for Liberty.
I get the idea that Libertarians are trying to reach out to 'dissatisfied republicans" w/ johnson&weld;, but they're never going to do as well as they think. Esp. on "non-intervention" plus "open-borders" etc.
The pitch would be (I'd hope) something more about representing a government which "sticks to the constitution", which is sort of shorthand for a lot of things that appeal to a lot of republicans.
Sort of, but the very idea of the Constitution has been perverted. They don't teach the history of the Constitution. They can't even teach a lot of people the three branches of government.
I think my point about "the constitution" is more abstract that you're taking it.
Its just sort of a Tea Party dogwhistle that says, "I have principles" that include freedom of speech/religion, gun rights, limited government, strong federalist impulse... and if you throw in some added sauce of "and i don't see every problem as something for government to solve"... it fills in a lot of gaps without having to say as much.
"Budgets" on the other hand, mean little to voters (*they may say so, but its not something that motivates them to act).
I've heard politicians as varied as Dick Cheney and Charles Rangel both say their own version of, "No one's ever been elected because they promised to balance the budget"
"the three branches of government."
1. Obama
2. His pen
3. His phone
4. His rifle
5. His gun
6. One is for fightin'
7. The other, for fun
don't forget his top adviser, the daily newspaper
It always surprises me that an outfit that bangs on and on about markets knows so little about marketing.
Why should Constitution Party members vote Libertarian this year?
(and I'll gladly stipulate for the sake of argument that Constitution Party members should not exist, or should fuck off, etc. But assuming they continue to exist and don't fuck off?)
same goes for conservative Christian SoCon fundies in general.
I've never actually met a Constitution party member. Do they exist? I thought it was just that party-jumping cunt Goode and his wife and kids who felt obligated to vote for him.
I think one of the Baldwin brothers is a Constitution Party member. Chuck, if I remember correctly.
You're probably thinking of Steven "Douchebag" Baldwin, who at one point tried to mix monster-truck-rallies with Christian ministry
Then there's Daniel, who seems the only tolerable one to have a coke-binge-weekend with. Or at least it would make a better story.
Is the convention over?
No, just about to start candidate speeches:
From Eddie/Eddy:
http://www.redstate.com/absent.....onvention/
Then why is Reason encouraging Republicans to vote libertarian this year? We don't even know who the candidate will be yet. I think there's a really good chance that I won't be voting libertarian this year. Which will mean sitting it out, considering who the remaining 3 candidates are.
Well, we already know that Republicans have lower standards for their presidential candidates, so I guess the LP is looking for votes wherever they can get them...
FREEDOM!
AN ACTUAL BLACK GUY!
I bet he is a white black guy.
Atletico is finally starting to attack. C'mon, guys. Don't let Ronaldo win.
What is libertarian?
More like the party of William F. Buckley? That fucking CIA spook? I don't think so.
-jcr
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Why Republicans Should Vote Libertarian This Year, According to Libertarians
Yes, the republicans (and democrats) should vote Libertarian.
But they won't.
They're too much in love with Big Government and its spoils and power.
"We're the real Republicans now, and you don't care about pot smokers anyway, so if you'll never vote Trump, you still have a place to go."
This message will attract a few Republicans to Gary Johnson, but it won't keep them beyond this Presidential election, and it'll attract far fewer Democrats, so it won't establish a meaningful third party, and it will elect Clinton.
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