Chase Oliver: Q&A With the Controversial Libertarian Party Candidate

The 2024 Libertarian Party presidential candidate speaks out about the Israel-Hamas war, the authoritarian impulses of both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, and homophobia within his own party.

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Chase Oliver: Q&A With the Controversial Libertarian Party Candidate

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Today's guest is the Libertarian Party's candidate for president Chase Oliver, who wants to phase out Social Security and Medicare for younger Americans, create a 21st century version of Ellis Island, and get the government out of bedrooms and boardrooms. A longtime antiwar activist, he also wants to bring American troops home and slash the Pentagon's budget.

Despite such ultralibertarian positions, a number of high-profile Libertarian Party figures and state parties have declined to endorse him because he is not part of the national party's Mises Caucus and he believes that the nonsurgical transitioning of minors should be decided by doctors, parents, and kids without the state intervening.

Reason's Nick Gillespie talks with Oliver about misunderstandings surrounding his opposition to mask and vaccine mandates, how he first encountered the Libertarian Party at a gay pride event, and why he thinks millennials and Gen Z are particularly ready to listen to libertarian ideas after constantly being lied to by boomers like Donald Trump, Kamala Harris, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

0:00— Introduction

1:29— Economic policy & entitlement reform

11:45— Immigration reform

19:55— COVID-19 policy

22:21— A message to younger voters

24:20— The cases for and against Kamala Harris

28:21— How Libertarians can appeal to Millennials & Gen-Z

29:52— The case against Trump and Vance

32:07— Are Millennials cynically attached to institutions?

33:29— Libertarian Party conflicts

36:12— Ad: Students For Liberty

37:44— A libertarian view on trans issues

44:59— Being the first openly LGBTQ national candidate

46:55— LNC's unusual collaboration with RFK Jr.

51:05— Uptick in Gen-Z LGBTQ identification

53:32— Oliver's political evolution

56:53— Foreign policy: Ukraine, Israel, and China

1:04:40— Could Trump or Harris turn more libertarian?

Today's sponsor:

• Students for Liberty (SFL). Are you a freedom-loving college student seeking a platform to amplify your voice? Then you need to check out Students for Liberty, a global hub for liberty-loving students like you. With members in over 100 countries, empower yourself and others to champion freedom. Visit StudentsForLiberty.org to discover how you can join their movement and contribute to building a freer future.

• Video Editor: Ian Keyser

Comments

[Mother's Lament]

the authoritarian impulses of both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris

Notorious holiday double-mask enforcers.

and homophobia within his own party.

Actual homophobia like convincing gay kids that they aren't gay but actually girls and that they should have themselves castrated, or the imaginary strawman kind that Jeffsarc likes to invoke?

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

And Oliver isn't ‘controversial’. He’s unserious and holds a number of extreme progtarded positions. So he sucks, and not in the way that Pedo Jeffy and Drunky Sarc scream about.

[A Thinking Mind]

You took the words right out of my mouth. This is what I came here to say. The reason I don't support him isn't that I see him as some kind of edgy firebrand, pushing limits and making people take sides. It's simply because I don't take him seriously.

His greatest achievement as a candidate is getting less votes in an election than the previous libertarian to run for the same office. He was then lauded by the democrat-favored media because a Democrat won the runoff election, but it's far from the first time a libertarian forced a Senate runoff in Georgia. This time was somehow more impactful because a Democrat won the runoff.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Oliver is weird.

[Sevo, 5-30-24, embarrassment]

He wishes he was weird as compared to irrelevant. He doesn't matter to anyone other than Reason 'writers'.

[Bruce]

He seems like a nice young man. He's just decided, stupidly, to run his mouth on hot button issues like Israel or transing kids where he is wrong

[Bipedal Humanoid]

Seems like he thinks it's OK for 10 year olds to decide to cut their dicks off. Definitely retarded.

[Rick James]

Hey, speaking of Homophobia, excellent interview from Andrew Doyle (He's GAY!!!1!!!!!!) who breaks down, in forensic detail why wokeness and the LGBTQI2MAP+ movement is definitionally homophobic.

This is the best Andrew Doyle interview I've ever heard. Highly recommend.

And this is a case where Doyle's gay experience actually is relevant, because he details super inside-baseball stuff in the gay community on how these ideologies are perceived.

[mad.casual]

IDK. I didn’t listen to the whole interview. The number of “As a gay man/lesbian woman… I agree with this.” with likes and other positive interactions from the host makes it seem an awful lot like still more brain dead, social justice, kabuki theater. Mindlessly replacing evil pronoun-demanders with the obviously more virtuous “As a [identity]…” proclaimers.

Very much, “We apologize again for the fault in the use of pronouns. Those responsible as gay people for sacking the gay people who have just been sacked as gay people, have been sacked.”

To Doyle and the hosts’ credit, they do manage to avoid any such overt self-proselytizing/aggrandizing declarations in the first 15 min. or so.

[R Mac]

As a libertarian, I’m picking up what you’re laying down.

[Bruce]

Thanks

[Rick James]

How Libertarians can appeal to Millennials & Gen-Z

Insert LGBTQI2MAP+ into every discussion. So... well done.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

I started to listen to the 37:44 “transitioning” section, and couldn’t get past Nick’s misframing of the problem.

The problem is child abuse. It doesn’t matter what doctors or children or adults “want”, whether the children “want” it on their own, or because other children claim to “want” it, or teachers or other adults groomed them to “want” it.

NO ONE pushes a child off a roof for identifying as Super[Man,Woman].

NO ONE amputates a child’s arm for identifying as The Fugitive character.

NO ONE mutilates a child for identifying as the opposite sex.

At least, no sane person does. You are literally abusing a child if you do that.

It used to be dogma that female genital mutilation was abhorrent; that castration, whether chemical or physical, for rapists was abhorrent; and that being gay was genetic and invariable; this is why conversion therapy was made illegal, and there has been liberal outrage just recently that Louisiana wants to castrate rapists.

Now it’s dogma that child mutilation surgery and castration, both chemical and physical, are mandated on a teacher’s say so, and several states have made it illegal for parents to oppose this mutilation for their own children.

THAT’S THE ISSUE.

They can transition all they want, back and forth as many times as they want, once they turn 18 or 21 or whatever the adulthood age is today, and on their own dime. No one cares.

STOP PRETENDING THIS HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH HOMOPHOBIA.

[Rick James]

I'm starting to get squishy on adults transitioning. Because as more evidence comes out, it's clear there's tons of medical malpractice and industry coercion and lying to adults. "Oh, you're the perfect candidate to have your balls cut off!"

[Stupid Government Tricks]

They're still adults. It's their adult choice.

In my Chartertopia, perjury is basically all authoritative lies, such as a doctor lying about transitioning, and the penalty is the same as what the perjury tried to accomplish, or did accomplish. Frame someone for murder, you are punished same as your victim was punished. Try to frame someone for murder, and you are punished as your victim could have been plausibly punished.

A doctor lying to someone about castration or any other transitioning would be in deep deep doodoo.

[Overt]

Yes much of this wouldn't have been possible without ACA which allowed political hacks to command and control what is both covered by insurance and indemnified against malpractice. A transitioning person is basically a lifetime customer for a doctor and insurance company- and insurance companies can cover whatever the government tells them they should, and they will always get their 2% profit on top of it. So what if the rest of the world has to pitch in money to support it?

You cannot unravel this just by holding doctors accountable. If consumers also had to reckon with the extreme cost of transition, many would instead choose to experiment with social transitioning, only moving on to medical intervention if that did not work. It is the fact that we have socialized the payment of these ridiculous procedures that we now have a crisis on our hands.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

Very true, the same excuse they use to fight obesity (or at least when that's not fat shaming), smoking, drinking, and drugs. It won't be long before they'll include mountain climbing, skydiving, and everything else fun.

[Let's Please NOT Hang Mike Pence!]

Species change surgery should be covered by insurance ass well!!!

For "medically necessary" species change surgery, I give you "Dennis Avner" the stalking cat-man... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalking_Cat

[Truthfulness]

Go away, SQRLSY One. It's long past your bedtime.

[Let's Please NOT Hang Mike Pence!]

So then I take shit that ye are in FLAVOR of insurance mandates for “medically necessary” species change surgeries?

So let shit be written, so let shit be done!!!! Truthfulness = True Obedience to the Evil One, Truthfulness tells us!!! ALL HAIL, Cumrades!!!!

(PS, THIS is why we must... Hang Mike Pence, the disobedient, evil = non-Trumpista one!!!)

[JesseAz (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

Youre likely paying for the decisions of those adults for what is ultimately elective surgery.

[n00bdragon]

You also pay for acupuncture and chiropractic through insurance as well. They are baseless nonsense and pseudoscience masquerading as healthcare, but most modern insurance plans cover them and there is no outrage about their coverage.

[JesseAz (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

Yes. Let’s compare 50 dollar visits (and no most insurance doesn’t cover theraputics) to 100k surgery and lifetime drugs. In fact ACA made those things out of pocket unless capped for deductible payment.

Lol.

[n00bdragon]

Medicare spends $500 million on chiropractic alone per year every year. How many trannies on the dole would America need to reach those kind of numbers?

I'm fully onboard with the "transgenderism isn't medicine" argument, but saying it's even a blip on the financial waste radar is grossly overstating how many people are doing this.

[DesigNate]

That’s insane and should also be stopped.

[Overt]

For the record I complain about 100% of these. Even well visits are absurd, and should not be covered. I am a proponent of high deductible insurance, which is solely for catastrophic medical issues.

[DesigNate]

You mean ACTUAL insurance? Like, I’m paying you a premium on the off chance that something really bad happens in the future that you would pay the agreed amount of?

[Rick James]

Why can't I get my doctor to prescribe arsenic or leeches, then?

[chemjeff radical individualist]

Fun fact about leeches:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3757849/

[DesigNate]

But enough about politicians. Bah duh cha.

(On a serious note, I’ll have to read that more in depth when I have time, but it looks interesting.)

[JoeB]

You are correct to blame the doctors who choose to break their oath and transition kids (and many adults). Medicine has lost its credibility, first with Covid and now with transgenderism. They need to be fined and jailed, not just have their licenses revoked.

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

If a doctor made significant, knowing misstatements of medical fact to me during a pre surgical consult, and it had the kind of negative impact that ‘transitioning’ shit causes, it wouldn’t even be necessary to wait for the malpractice suit. That doctor would just be gone one day.

Suffice it to say, it would end poorly for that doctor.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

Think of it this way: if you are an adult, you own yourself, regardless of harm to self or the distaste of others.

Adulthood really does mean you make your own decisions about yourself. To allow society or government or anyone else to make decisions for you, or for anyone else, is slavery, or at least treating them like children. The only acceptable limit is preventing harm to others.

[Overt]

I worked at Quark back in the day, which was one of the first real gay-friendly companies in the country. Its co-founder, Tim Gill was a famous gay rights activist, and helped pioneer the initial "Domestic Partner" insurance coverage that was gay friendly. I spent a lot of time talking with people who were gay, and with people who were transitioning. One transitioning person wrote and posted about that journey on a company bulletin board in the lunch room.

Transition was a MASSIVE ordeal in the late 90s. It was at least a 10 year process, where you experimented with social transitioning, and confirmed whether it was really what would make you feel better. The decision to actually perform surgery was so serious that the doctors expected to work through it over several years. This is because no matter how good we are at surgery, you are signing yourself up to a lifetime of discipline. Artificial orifices need to be regularly cleaned, lubricated and kept open with special prosthetic devices. Drugs need to be taken regularly. Special clothing needs to be purchased. Failure to do this could result in extremely serious consequences.

In around 2 decades, this went from something so serious that even adults were cautioned against jumping in, to something that people are legit arguing a 14 year old kid should be able to do. I can't reliably get my 14 year old to take care of his braces, and these doctors are arguing that a 14 year old can appreciate and fulfill 60+ years of caring for an artificial vagina and taking hormone blockers daily? This is nuts, and those people should be ashamed.

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

All the people pushing this on children should be put to death. Execution should be conducted by replicating the same chemical and surgical procured used on their victims.

[Wally]

Executions take too long in our system. Just jail them as child abusers and let nature take its course.

[JesseAz (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

I'm squishy on it because majority of funding is taxpayer dollars for the transition.

It isn't labeled elective care forcing their costs onto us.

[JesseAz (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

Especially with the release of memos last week showing the doctors Chase mentions in WPATH were pressured by the white house and the FDA knows castration drugs are bad but still allowed them.

[Social Justice is neither]

Well, that's just according to you and your White Supremacist "science" and objective truth. As a gay man Chase obviously knows better because he feels it in his bones.

[Overt]

Without a doubt, there should be wide deference given to a parent and how they choose to raise their child. That should include school, religious upbringing, sports, and other major undertakings. The parent holds the life and rights of their child in trust, and trust-holders should have the final say in that child's life, up to a point.

It is pretty damn clear that the point ends when you are signing a child up for a lifetime of medical intervention. Whether it is surgery, or drug-induced, medically transitioning a child leaves LASTING effects that cannot be undone.

The moral choice for a Trust-holder is to defer such a permanent decision until the child can make that decision at an age of majority- 18 or 21. If you are truly worried that your child is in danger of suicide, there are AMPLE interventions that do not require irreversible medical transition. Get the kid a fucking therapist.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

If you are truly worried that your child is in danger of suicide, there are AMPLE interventions that do not require irreversible medical transition. Get the kid a fucking therapist.

What if therapy doesn't work?

This isn't just a theoretical question.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leelah_Alcorn

[Rick James]

What if therapy fails to convince me I'm not St. Jerome? Huh, I guess they should carve me up to look like St. Jerome then.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

If you have such a severe mental illness, that isn't successfully treated with therapy or drugs or more conventional treatment, that you attempt suicide rather than looking like St. Jerome? Then from a purely pragmatic point of view - what is the harm in allowing the surgery? Either alternative sounds rather grim.

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

Plenty, you sick piece of shit. Oh, and stay away from children, if you know what’s good for you.

[Overt]

"What if the therapy doesn't work"

I dunno, what if you provide a counter example that is specific to my argument?

I note that parents considering medical transition should explore alternatives that are not permanent, like therapy. You cherry pick a scenario where the parents not only wouldn't consider medical transition but sent the kid to conversion therapy. That isn't comparable.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

I dunno, what if you provide a counter example that is specific to my argument?

Umm, it is. They went with therapy and it didn't work.

[Overt]

They went with conversion therapy.

Is your argument that if conversion therapy doesn't work on a child, then NO therapy is sufficient?

[A Thinking Mind]

I wonder if he realizes that the outcome he wants-leaving the government out of these decisions-is an argument in favor of the example he linked. Parents can choose to put their kid into conversion therapy, can refuse any attempts to socially transition, can pull their kid out of public school after they come out as gay, and the government should intervene.

For the record, I'm in favor of that, and these extremely rare cherry-picked examples don't really tip the scales against the people who do get transitional surgeries and still end up self-deleting. The issue is one of mental wellness.

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

Rare, cherry picked examples and sophist arguments are always how extreme far leftists justify the horrific policies they want to inflict on us. Pedo Jeffy thrives on this kind of disingenuous bullshit.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

I am also in favor of that. The problem is when parents want to pursue other options but they are forbidden by law. So these parents have no choice but to rely on potentially ineffective therapy.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

Umm, dude, read the room. Yes they went with conversion therapy. That is the type of therapy that the kids of parents who reject 'gender affirming care' can expect to receive. Look at some of the comments in these discussions about 'the whole profession is corrupted', 'doctors are only doing this to make money off of lifetime transgender drugs',

I think other types of therapy can work, I don't know how you are going to convince conservative parents to send their kids to these other types of therapies though.

[JoeB]

The risk of suicide in people who have transitioned is equal or greater than those who have not yet, but want to. This evidence is so clear that the whole of Europe has slammed the brakes on medical and surgical transitioning for kids. So you have no argument.

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

He never does.

[DesigNate]

Freedom is messy and some people are going to be so miserable that they’re going to take that permanent yeet?

If it’s a child in your care? No, you shouldn’t be able to harm them because of their mental illness or depression.

[Mickey Rat]

What if transitioning does not "work"?

[chemjeff radical individualist]

For those who are GENUINELY ILL, please distinguish between gender transitioning, and the following medical procedures which also permanently alter a child:

chemotherapy
organ transplants
amputations after severe injury

[Stupid Government Tricks]

If yee canna see the difference, yank that damned telescope away from your blind eye.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

The difference, it seems to me, is that chemotherapy, organ transplants, and amputations are to treat medical conditions that you agree are valid, but gender transitioning is to treat a medical condition that you don't believe is valid.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

The other three treat physical conditions. Child mutilation does not.

You'd use a guillotine to treat headaches.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

Gender dysphoria is a mental condition that can have physical manifestations. The child is not well.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

It is not a physical condition. It cannot be cured physically, any more than a guillotine can cure headaches.

[Azathoth!!]

Gender dysphoria isn't a diagnosis.

It's a symptom.

It's a sign of severe alienation from self.

It is not a medical condition, it is a psychological one.

Medical transition does not help because it no longer even tries to address the underlying issue. And it cannot work without it.

The only types of medical transition that work are those based, at least in part, in auto gyno or andro philia.

Because that issue is about the look.

People suffering from extreme alienation don't want to change sex, they want to feel good in their own skin. After transition, despite the procedures, they're still in the skin they started with.

Except now they have fewer options.

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

Pedo Jeffy just wants to groom and butcher children. This is why he is so obsessed with this sick shit.

[Mother's Lament]

Not only is it not valid, it is a mental illness at best and a sexual fetish at worst, you fucking child mutilating monster.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

The only monsters around here are the people who pretend that the children truly suffering from gender dysphoria don't exist, or can be written off as expendable.

[Rick James]

No, you're the monster because you peddle a lie, call it a "medical condition" absent any evidence whatsoever, and prescribe a 'fix' which doesn't address anything going on in the mind. Sterilizing a child doesn't "fix" anything... at all.

[Rick James]

It’s not a “medical condition”, it’s an ideology.

Don't take it from me, take it from a psychiatrist.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

Fine, then no one ever suffers from gender dysphoria, and those kids who attempt suicide are just disposable tragedies.

Yup, they're all brainwashed and indoctrinated into the transgender ideology, every single one, and the ones who attempt suicide or worse are successful at suicide are really the victims of indoctrination, not suffering from any real mental illness at all.

[Mother's Lament]

Most of them don't have gender dysphoria and are gay kids being victimized by monsters like you.

But for the astonishingly rare ones that actually do, the treatment for gender dysphoria isn't castration and clitorectomies, but counseling and mental health treatment instead, you demonic fuck.

What you advocate is like saying the solution to suicidal tendencies is beheading.

You're so gross and evil.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

counseling and mental health treatment instead

And if that doesn't work?

[Bertram Guilfoyle]

"And if that doesn’t work?"

Jeff, what if what you advocate doesn't work?

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

Kids attempt suicide for all kinds of reason, NONE of which justify chemically or surgically butchering them.

You really are a sick, malignant creature. If you have even a tiny shred of humanity, you will commit suicide before you cause harm to anyone else.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

It is not a physical condition and cannot be cured by physical treatment. You support child abuse. You are a pedophile at best.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

It can't be cured at all. The best that can happen is to manage the symptoms.

It's people like who you are responsible for kids killing themselves because they cannot get the help that they need.

[damikesc]

Can you point out to the significant reduction in suicidal activity before and after surgeries?

Nobody else can.

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

“It can’t be cured at all”

Cite? Something other than your sophist, pedophillic word. In case you decide to post a link to one of your other sophist pedophillic comments.

[DesigNate]

There’s that collective guilt.

[Zeb]

Yes, that is the issue (except we're talking about treatments that are valid, not conditions. I think everyone knows that gender dysphoria is a real condition that some people suffer from). A lot of people don't think that "affirmative care" is an appropriate treatment for gender dysphoria in many or most cases. Why do you think that's some kind of gotcha? Of course people are opposed to treatments that they think are largely harmful and therefore not valid.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

I think everyone knows that gender dysphoria is a real condition that some people suffer from).

Tell that to Rick James, who thinks that they are all being brainwashed by some study from 40 years ago.

A lot of people don’t think that “affirmative care” is an appropriate treatment for gender dysphoria in many or most cases.

Medical/pharmaceutical treatments are really only for those who are genuinely suffering from this mental illness and not just kids "going through a phase". I agree that the medical & pharmaceutical interventions have been handed out too liberally in the recent past. Everyone needs to slow down and take their time on these diagnoses and these treatments.

[DesigNate]

“…which doesn’t address anything going on in the mind.”

He pretty clearly thinks this is a mental disorder. What he said was a lie is your laughably absurd idea that it’s a medical condition.

[Rick James]

You really can't be this stupid.

Chemotherapy attempts to fix that which is broken.
Organ transplants attempts to fix that which is broken.
amputations after injury attempt to fix that which is broken.

Gender transition surgery is literally designed to break that which is working.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

It is an attempt to manage the symptoms in a way that permits the person to live some sort of reasonable life, instead of living a life that is perpetually full of depression and attempted suicide.

[damikesc]

Look at Ellen Page.

She is one of the "best-case" scenarios, and she is so clearly miserable that is defies logic.

"I want to be cast as a man in movies." --- because there is a soul on Earth who would actually buy Ellen as a man.

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

She went from being a reasonably attractive cute female to the abomination she is today.

[DesigNate]

And yet the evidence is clear that they STILL suffer from massive depression and continue to attempt suicide (almost like the underlying problem isn’t akin to fucking cancer, failing organs or cutting off a gangrenous appendage.)

[Overt]

"and the following medical procedures which also permanently alter a child:"

A child will not die of gender dysphoria. Point blank.

[Overt]

More specifically, the cases you suggested all follow basically the same rule- they are only used when there is no safer outcome. Children are treated for cancer all the time without chemotherapy, and it is only when they have no other alternative to stop the advance of cancer that the medical procedure is used. The same is true with organ transplants and amputation.

Left COMPLETELY untreated, gender dysphoria never killed anyone. The belief that someone is a different gender never metastasized to the point that their organs failed and their heart stopped.

A second order result of untreated gender dysphoria is often depression (which can be treated) and suicidal thoughts (which can be treated). Those can then result in attempted suicide (which should be prevented). Children experience serious mental problems all the time, not just due to gender dysphoria, and in most cases this is treated with therapy, and sometimes rarely with psychotropic drugs (more often than I think we should, tbh) which are carefully studied precisely to minimize long-term effects to the patient.

I try to stay away from the science, because the science is always politicized. That said, before I would consider medical transitioning (surgical or chemical) somehow analogous to chemotherapy, I would expect science to be able to show a level of effectiveness on par with chemotherapy. And that science would be nearly impossible to prove, because it is extremely difficult to prove a direct link between gender dysphoria and suicide in the same way that cancer is linked to death from cancer. Not saying it is impossible, but I find it highly implausible, because- again- cancer kills, while gender dysphoria merely causes anguish which, in a small number of kids, may result in them taking their own lives.

We rely on compassionate therapy to treat minors with mental conditions resulting in suicidal thoughts ALL THE TIME, and there is no evidence that the mental condition gender dysphoria is somehow uniquely resistant to such therapy. The studies that have been provided are extremely sloppy, and do not do things like analyze the gamut of treatment options- how could they? Until this decade, the populations were too small to provide anything near this. And, FWIW, this is why countries in Europe are now revising their policies: because as time goes by, it is becoming clear that the science does not justify such a radical departure from treatment norms.

Back to logic, let’s flip this around. If I read your stance correctly, you would have to allow a parent working in consult with doctors to perform a frontal lobotomy to their child to treat mental depression. If not, why not?

[chemjeff radical individualist]

Fun fact: lobotomies are legal in the US.

https://psychcentral.com/blog/the-surprising-history-of-the-lobotomy#legality

So in some states, it's actually more likely that a kid will get a lobotomy than gender reassignment surgery.

I do not think any valid medical procedure should be banned. And in this context, a valid medical procedure is one that is intended to treat a measurable, diagnosable disease state (whether physical or mental, they are both types of disease), and that follows a strict and thoroughly peer reviewed standard of care. I think the role for government in medicine should be confined to policing whether proper protocols were followed with the diagnosis and the standard of care, and to licensure in general of medical professionals.

If you are going to scream BUT WHAT ABOUT THE QUACK DOCTORS, then the solution there is to punish the quacks, not ban the procedures.

If you are going to scream BUT WHAT ABOUT MENGELE, the problem there was Mengele was performing scientific experiments, not treating disease - and moreover, the government was complicit, so government regulations wouldn't have stopped it anyway.

If you are going to scream BUT WHAT ABOUT LOBOTOMIES, then as pointed out, lobotomies are still legal - just used very rarely. As they should be. Which should also be the case with gender reassignment treatment for kids.

I imagine that gender reassignment surgery ought to be about as rare as lobotomies in terms of valid medical procedures.

[Overt]

“So in some states, it’s actually more likely that a kid will get a lobotomy than gender reassignment surgery.”

No that is not true. There is not a medical association in the country that supports this practice. As stated in the article you google searched:

“Today, the procedure is banned in many countries and no longer performed in the United States.”

We know today that the lobotomies were absolutely wrong and evil. That is why they are banned and not performed. To the extent that they may be “technically legal” in certain states that is only because professional boards have banned the practice in the intervening time, and so there has been no reason for States to follow through.

Nevertheless, in the 40s and 50s these practices were performed ON MINORS based on “The Science!”. It seems to me that your argument is “As long as the procedures were followed, it was morally acceptable.”

So to be clear, if a parent lobotomized their child in the 50s, based on advice from their doctor, you would say that is okay? After all, they followed the rules.

If so then that is why I will never cede moral legitimacy to authoritarians like yourself. You don’t need an authority of Science! to tell you whether or not it is moral to make an irreversible change to a child’s body if there are non-permanent alternatives available. Whether it is chemically blocking puberty, or severing synapses in their frontal cortex. Absent some pressing emergency (like an existing epileptic seizure), the proper moral course of action is to treat and comfort the child in order to get them to an age when they can make that decision for themselves.

The difference between our moral frameworks is that mine would have prevented unspeakable evil in the 40s, and will prevent it now. Yours would permit both, merely because you trust authorities.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

I said nothing about what is MORALLY acceptable. You smuggled that bit in.

We know today that the lobotomies were absolutely wrong and evil.

Key word - today. You are judging the past by the standards of today. That is fundamentally unfair and a gross distortion of history. It is the same categorical error of those left-wingers who condemn and dismiss the Founding Fathers because they owned slaves.

In the past, there were all sorts of unspeakable horrors inflicted onto people in the name of medicine either because (a) no one knew any better, or (b) that was the only viable treatment at the time, the alternative being certain death. Are you going to condemn every doctor who prescribed leeches and arsenic and trepanation based on today's standards?

In ALL of these cases, whether in the past or in the modern day, I say that the *libertarian* principle here ought to be that the parents ought to decide, keeping in mind the best interests of their child, while consulting the best medical advice available to them at the time. That is the way that preserves *liberty*.

Whether or not it is MORALLY acceptable is an entirely different question. Perhaps some parents when faced with a tragic situation involving their child, would rather choose death for their child instead of a particularly painful procedure that has a low probability of success. Perhaps another set of parents would choose the excruciatingly painful procedure instead of death. Is either one moral or immoral? It is not my place to say and I am not going to stand in judgment on them. I simply ask that each set of parents have the full liberty to decide either way however they choose.

[DesigNate]

People knew lobotomies were fucking immoral back then too.

You would have been on the front lines yelling at them how they were horrible anti-science authoritarians.

[JoeB]

Is the treatment for body dysmorphic syndrome bariatric surgery or dieting? It is not. We don't treat delusions with surgery or irreversible drug therapy.

[Mickey Rat]

Those treat physiological injuries or conditions that are objective in nature and are known to solve the problem which is otherwise life threatening. Gender transitioning is treating a psychological condition that is, at best, poorly understood and definitely does not solve the underlying cause for a non terminal condition.

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

You just tilt the Pedo Jeffy signal. Which is similar to the bat signal, but is instead an obese sea lion.

[JesseAz (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

Castration and cutting dicks and tits off is the same as chemotherapy. -jeff

[chemjeff radical individualist]

What do you do for kids who are genuinely ill from gender dysphoria?

You say send them to counseling. Fine. You say cut them off from social media and their toxic circle of friends. Fine. You say refuse to recognize them as the 'other' gender. Fine.

What do you do if none of that works?

[Stupid Government Tricks]

Send them to comment on Reason as a radical collectivist demanding everyone else pretend their imagination is reality.

Same as you’d push a kid off a roof if therapy doesn’t cure him thinking he’s Superman.

Or as any sane adult would do, wait for them to become an adult and take responsibility for themselves.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

This is a serious question. You somehow think that all the kids suffering from gender dysphoria will “snap out of it” given enough therapy. What if, there are a few kids out there for whom therapy doesn’t work? What is your preferred solution? What should the parents do while waiting for their kid to turn 18?

[Stupid Government Tricks]

No, jackass. Learn to read.

They can wait til they're adults. It's not a physical condition, unlike cancer.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

It is a mental condition that quite often has physical manifestations such as anxiety, depression and attempted suicide.

What is your advice to these parents while they are waiting for their troubled child to turn 18?

[Nobartium]

Spankings.

And more traditional parenting.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

Good luck trying to spank a 17-year-old.

What "traditional parenting" did you have in mind?

[DesigNate]

Those aren’t physical ailments. What the actual fuck?

[Rick James]

This is a serious question. You somehow think that all the kids suffering from gender dysphoria will “snap out of it” given enough therapy.

Yes. Those studies were done almost 40 years ago. The entire gender ideology and surgical transition philosophy was created by a maniacal sick pedophile who was directly responsible for the suicide of his patient.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

Then you are lying, and consigning kids to death because you reject who they are and instead impose YOUR ideology upon them. You should be ashamed of yourself.

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

No, you fat faggot, that’s YOU. You always lie and try to impose false binary choices. We’ve straightened you out on this (and many other) subjects here, dozens of times. You just come back saying the same discredited shit.

Just GTFO.

[Zeb]

I can't speak for anyone else, but I think that most kids will eventually get over it. I'm willing to accept that there is a very small number of people who may be able to live their happiest life pretending to be the other sex. But treating every confused teenager as if they are part of that group causes enormously more harm than good as far as I can tell.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

I agree that most kids will "snap out of it". But it is not 100%.

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

Almost nothing is 100% groomer. Just stay away for children.

[DesigNate]

So because it’s not 100%, we should allow parents to permanently harm their kids?

[Mickey Rat]

If you agree most kids will "snap out of it" why are you advocating a treatment course which will cause great physiological damage to those children before they do "snap out of it"?

[JesseAz (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

For even those who fully transition, suicide rates go up, citation CASS report. Happiness is fleeting as they think they've done something but the depression comes back once the novelty of new wears off.

Jeff has been given all this information, he doesn't care.

We don't staple stomachs of anorexic girls.

We don't pretend to see the images of schizophrenic patients.

It is largely a mental issue only. Cutting off body parts shows no actua improvement and CASS report shows it has a negative outcome as patients deal with lifetime medical costs.

Jeff is literally anti science on the issue.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

That same Cass report showed that attempted suicide and suicidality rates are higher among trans-identified youth than among the general youth population.

[Overt]

That is what Jesse said. But his point is that "even those who fully transition" have these elevated suicide rates.

If pumping a child full of chemicals DIDN'T drastically improve their chance of surviving cancer, we wouldn't do it.

[Azathoth!!]

Yes.

Because they treat the delusion by affirmation without ever bothering to seek the cause of the delusion.

Since the root cause is never addressed, the issue never gets fixed and the suicide rate remains high.

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

His concern trolling is tedious. We all know that he supports this shot to further the democrat agenda, and as part of a larger plan to make his pedophillic dreams a reality.

Jeffy has ALWAYS landed on the pedophile friendly side of any related discussion.

[damikesc]

How would you handle, say, anorexia?

It is a comically similar condition.

Do you decide to starve them so they can, at least, live how they view themselves?

[But SkyNet is a Private Company]

Quit saying “genuinely ill” you knownothing

[chemjeff radical individualist]

The problem is, there are those people out there who are ill, to the point of showing physical manifestations such as anxiety and depression and attempted suicide. For these individuals, there is a real problem about what to do, and moreover, who should be making the decisions about what to do.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

Yeah, and kids throw tantrums because their parents won't buy them candy bars in the checkout lane, or buy them Superman costumes when they identify as Superman.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

See, that's the real issue here. You fundamentally don't think gender dysphoria is a sufficiently serious illness. "It's just a tantrum".

I posted a link to the sad story of a kid who killed herself due to her extreme gender dysphoria. These kids really do exist and it's not just a "tantrum".

[Stupid Government Tricks]

"A" sad story is an anecdote.

Dozens and hundreds of sad stories about regretting transition are data.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

You are right, it is an anecdote. But the anecdotes disprove the claim that therapy alone can solve gender dysphoria problems.

And that is the problem here. I tend to think that most kids who claim to be transgender are probably just "going through a phase" for whatever reason, and they will eventually develop normally - perhaps gay, perhaps straight, whatever, without undergoing any sort of medical or pharmaceutical treatment. But there do exist a small, small number of kids who really are ill and who really are suffering. They shouldn't just be written off and ignored. THEY are the reason why there should not be blanket total bans on the procedure.

[Nobartium]

THEY are the reason why there should not be blanket total bans on the procedure.

Laws which have exceptions are bad, so sayeth base libertarianism.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

When you cannot reliably tell the difference, they are the same. Mutilating 100 children because some pedo says one might have a physical condition is child abuse, especially when you can't even point to which one might be the "ill" one.

Let's round up everyone like you who MIGHT be an active pedo, because odds are ONE of you probably is. Castrate all of you.

That's your latest gimmick.

[Zeb]

Therapy doesn't work for everyone. People in therapy kill themselves all the time. That's not a reason to assume that some other particular thing would have worked better. The other issue with therapy is that a lot of therapists are all in on the current transgender trends. If, as many of us think, the current thinking around this issue in medical and psychological establishments is highly corrupted, it's likely that a lot of providers are steering people towards something which is at least unproven.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

When you cannot reliably tell the difference, they are the same.

But we CAN reliably tell the difference in many cases. That is what a standard of care is all about. The proper standard of care involves first therapy, and then "social transitioning" only to see if the kid is comfortable with these changes, for an extended period of time. I don't think these decisions should be taken lightly.

If there are 100 children who think they are transgender, but 99 will eventually "snap out of it" but 1 does not, then I think we should do our level best to distinguish between the 99 and the 1, instead of banning the procedure for all 100 and letting that 1 child suffer and die.

[damikesc]

Who decides that your plan is the "proper" standard of care?

WPATH is an activist organization, so clearly, it cannot be them.

[Azathoth!!]

The proper standard of care involves first therapy, and then “social transitioning” only to see if the kid is comfortable with these changes, for an extended period of time. I don’t think these decisions should be taken lightly.

The proper standard of care is long gone. People I know have been offered testosterone at a first visit--in a reputable clinic at a hospital I've worked at.

The transition part of transitioning has been sped up horrifically. And 'gender dysphoria' diagnoses are doled out for trivialities.

If we were using the process you seem to think is still going on, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

Then the solution is to reform the practice, not to ban it altogether.

[Truthfulness]

There is no benefit to the practice. Abolish it.

[DesigNate]

Anxiety and depression aren’t physical.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

Now it’s dogma that child mutilation surgery and castration, both chemical and physical, are mandated on a teacher’s say so, and several states have made it illegal for parents to oppose this mutilation for their own children.

No one here is in favor of this. Any medical procedure whatsoever should have full parental consent.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

1. Several states have made it child abuse, punishable by prison, for NOT providing surgical mutilation to their own kids.

2. It is still child abuse to amputate kids' arms or legs just because they identify as the Fugitive character, regardless of parental consent.

3. Genital mutilation is still child abuse, regardless of parental consent. Or have you suddenly decided that it's OK for African tribes to mutilate their daughters' genitals?

[chemjeff radical individualist]

1. Several states have made it child abuse, punishable by prison, for NOT providing surgical mutilation to their own kids.

I disagree with those laws.

2. It is still child abuse to amputate kids’ arms or legs just because they identify as the Fugitive character, regardless of parental consent.

I tend to agree, in the way that you posed the statement.

3. Genital mutilation is still child abuse, regardless of parental consent. Or have you suddenly decided that it’s OK for African tribes to mutilate their daughters’ genitals?

There is a difference between a medical procedure to treat a diagnosed disease state, and genital mutilation for the purpose of some social custom that has no connection to any illness whatsoever.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

1. You do not. Everything you've posted here agrees with those laws, in intent and in practice. You do not believe parents have the right to prevent child genital mutilation.

2. Bullshit, by analogy.

3. Chemotherapy treats a physical condition. Child genital mutilation does not.

[Mother's Lament]

The children’s genitals that Jeff wants to remove are healthy and functional. The cancer on the other hand will kill the child. But look at how the monster tries to equate the two.

When I say Jeff is evil, it isn’t hyperbole. What he advocates is monstrous and demonic.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

The child’s BRAIN is not fully healthy and functional. That is the problem here.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

It is not a physical malfunction. You want to mutilate hundreds of kids because YOU think one of them might have a real physical problem.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

No, I want ALL children to get the help that each one individually ought to get.

If a kid wants surgery "on a whim", then that kid shouldn't get the surgery.

[Mother's Lament]

Mutilating children's genitals will never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never help children who have a mental illness.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

Okay then. Suicide it is.

[Bertram Guilfoyle]

Holy fucking false alternative, jeff.

[A Thinking Mind]

So it's "Gender conversion or suicide," to you? This is exactly the kind of moral panic we complain about. Not letting your kid get surgery until they're old enough to make that decision themselves is not the same as killing them.

But you're fine with doctors putting this kind of false pressure on parents, telling them, "Would you prefer a dead son or a living daughter?" It's bullshit and it's meant to create a moral panic.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

Look, I posted the sad story of a troubled teen who really did choose suicide after being told no. It is wrong to put that kind of pressure onto parents over kids for whom it doesn't apply. But it is not wrong to point out that there ARE a small number of kids for whom that stark choice DOES apply.

[DesigNate]

Fuck you and your appeals to emotion Jeff.

[Mickey Rat]

And artificially changing the child's biochemistry to mimic the opposite sex does not treat the brain dysfunction, nor does sculpting the body to mimic the form of the opposite sex.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

1. I do. I dare you to find even one place where I have said gender transition should be permitted without parental consent.

2. In the way you framed the issue, you framed the kids as "identifying" as the Fugitive character on a whim, and not as a result of some medical condition. In this way, I don't think "whims" should be treated with surgery.

3. Gender dysphoria, actually all mental illnesses, can have physical manifestations, such as anxiety, depression, and attempted suicide.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

1 and 2 --- look at your statements. I have, many times, and I'm not going to do so again.

3. Manifestations are symptoms. You want to "cure" the symptoms, not the disease.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

There is no "cure" for gender dysphoria. The best that can happen is to manage the symptoms.

By the way, chemotherapy is also not a "cure" for cancer. It most often just gets rid of the cancer cells but does not directly stop the origin of the cancer.

[Mother's Lament]

“By the way, chemotherapy is also not a “cure” for cancer. It most often just gets rid of the cancer cells but does not directly stop the origin of the cancer.”

You stupid pettifogging pedantic fuck. Just because something doesn’t have a 100% success rate doesn’t mean it can’t be a cure, and if it kills the cancer cells then it very much is stopping the origin of the cancer.

Do you even know what cancer is? It’s cells with an error in the code growing in an uncontrolled manner.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

and if it kills the cancer cells then it very much is stopping the origin of the cancer.

then you don't know how cancer works

[Truthfulness]

@chemjeff radical individualist

How do you think there are cancer survivors? You eliminate the cause of the problem. That's by killing the cancerous cells.

[ducksalad]

Genital mutilation is still child abuse, regardless of parental consent.

So you support imprisoning parents who have their newborn sons circumcized? Seems kind of harsh, and I don’t think there’s enough room in the prisons. We're talking over 60% of parents.

[Mother's Lament]

1. Parents shouldn’t circumcise. It should be an adults choice.

2. Male circumcision doesn’t permanently harm or impair function in any way, anymore than a tattoo or piercing, and there is some evidence that it makes people less vulnerable to infection.

3. Castration is in no way the equivalent of circumcision anymore than getting a nose ring is like chopping off a nose.

[ducksalad]

Thanks for the straightforward answer.

While I agree with (1), the question was whether or not to send CPS and the police to take the kids and arrest the parents, respectively. I don't want to do either. I think very few adult males would do it unless driven by religious fervor or medical emergency.

On (2), one of the more common forms of female "circumcision" consists of a ceremonial scar made above genitals. I have a hard time seeing why that particular form is even as bad as losing the foreskin, and conclude that opposition to it is purely cultural bias. Obviously stuff like removing the clitoris is in a different class.

(3) Of course. However, now it is a matter of line drawing. How about having the breasts removed? No? How about merely having them just reduced a bit? It all sounds wrong to me but plenty of mentally healthy women have their breasts altered.

[Truthfulness]

You have a cellphone, don't you? Their fate is in your hands.

[DesigNate]

I very much like my circumcised penis, but I’d be fine with medical associations regulating the practice by physicians for medical necessity only (not even sure what would cause such a scenario).

FGM and gender transitioning are never medically necessary.

[Zeb]

That's what really bugs me about the whole thing too, especially regarding kids. Giving kids what they say they want is often a terrible idea. Even more so when you are dealing with a kid in some kind of mental health crisis. It's not all that far from telling a schizophrenic that everyone really is out to get them. Or giving a suicidal person a big bottle of pills.

[Overt]

60 years ago, parents working in concert with doctors treated schizophrenia and depression by driving a needle into their brain and performing shock therapy. It is only because the "science changed" that these evil things were discarded.

We need a moral framework that doesn't rely on experts enabling parents to visit unspeakable evil on their children. Luckily that moral framework exists in the Hippocratic Oath and in a trustee relationship. Parents should be doing everything in their power not to make permanent changes to a child while getting them to the age of majority where they can make these decisions for themselves. Had we always followed that basic premise, this would never have been a problem.

[JFree]

The problem is child abuse. It doesn’t matter what doctors or children or adults “want”, whether the children “want” it on their own, or because other children claim to “want” it, or teachers or other adults groomed them to “want” it.

If child abuse is the problem, exactly what value is added by eliminating parents/children/doctors from the decision-making loop and instead adding pols/bureaucrats/judges/police/ministers/Mises Caucus/etc to that decision-making loop. I mean specifically - EXACTLY WHAT VALUE IS ADDED via those other people.

[Overt]

You aren't eliminating the parents/children/doctors from the decision making loop, any more than you are eliminating parents from the decision making loop if you forbid pimping them out on the street corner.

Every parent should have broad autonomy. But if the state has any purpose, it is to secure the rights of the individual. Under certain circumstances, it is appropriate for the State to intervene on behalf of the child when a parent is failing to uphold their duties.

[JFree]

That is a meaningless generic comment. Who specifically is supposed to act as 'the State' if some parent is failing to uphold their duties? Is it a different entity that will 'secure the rights of the individual'? Or 'intervene on behalf of the child'? It's just authoritarian paleogibberish.

[Mother's Lament]

What the hell are you talking about? Did you even read what he wrote?

[Overt]

It's JFear- he hears this shit in his head and thinks he is the smartest man in the world.

[JFree]

You’re bullshitting. 32 states have interposed pols/judges/cops/etc and eliminated doctors/parents/children (up to age 26 in some cases) from any decision loop whatsoever. That’s what a legal ban with penalties/jail/etc means. I repeat – what EXACT value do pols/judges/cops add to any decision here. All you are yapping is that somehow parents are failing to do their duty so the state has to ‘protect children’ (and punish doctors). It’s like fucking magic. They just know what to do.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

"NO ONE amputates a child’s arm for identifying as The Fugitive character."

I have made this point before. If you think chemical and surgical alteration of gender is acceptable in order to fulfill a person's self image, but you think elected amputation or paralysis is wrong--and the person who wants that is not of sound mind--then you are full of shit.

[Social Justice is neither]

Is ithimophobia or a rejection of the insertion of marxist progressive leftist ideas and beliefs into his every utterance.

If a person's every stance was buttressed by "as a devout christian" followed by nonsense demanded to be accepted as true I'd expect people to turn on both the messenger and christianity in general. This hold doubly true when my underlying explicit premise is that if you don't accept my nonsense you are evil. The same can be said for your gender and racial identity nonsense that Chase is fully engaged in.

[Rick James]

As was said above, "How do you appeal to Millennials and Gen-Z".

3 ways: Identity, Identity, Identity.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Also free stuff and promises of life without consequences.

[Overt]

I have not listened to Chase speak in anything but speeches before. My god he is horrible. He makes so many misstatements that actually reverse his point ("We need to stop the government creating wealth out of thin air...I mean money...not wealth...money.") He does it over and over again, and it makes him seem unconvincing.

He completely misrepresents the problems facing social security. He insists it can't be reformed (surprise: it can- all you need to do is peg the benefits to life expectancy.) Mind you, I'd love to get rid of Social Security, but for decades this "It's going bankrupt!" doomsaying has failed to persuade voters because it isn't true. There are simple fixes, and until you tell people the truth, they will increasingly tune you out. He also completely fumbles a description of the role of private charity here.

Chase isn't just a boring wonk like Paul Ryan was...he is an inarticulate wonk-pretender. He doesn't understand concepts and as a result, misspeaks constantly. Nick constantly defends Oliver as being "misconstrued" by his opponents, but when he speaks so poorly, it is easy to see why.

[JesseAz (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

Chase is an empty activist suit. He offers no details, just sloganeering. He joined the LPe for attention.

Even the false narrative that he is popular in the LPe is wrong. Chase was consistently losing the votes, but nobody reached a majority. Until he made a deal with one of the other candidates to make them VP and many MC voters left after midnight.

[A Thinking Mind]

I can't stand listening to him speak because he's an awful spokesman for libertarianism. It causes psychic pain to me because he's the supposed face of the libertarian party right now and he hasn't done his homework. He read the libertarian Cliff Notes and spits out a few phrases, enough to reach the correct answers on a multiple choice test. But I'm convinced his guiding principle is based on individual rights, property rights, and the NAP, his guiding principle is "Fuck the government."

Which is fine for someone who just wants to vote for the smallest government party, but it's not really ideal in someone running to become the most powerful person in the world. There's a difference between knowing that you won't realistically win and being completely unprepared to win.

I've said this before, but if some massive tabulation error had him receiving the most votes, he would be at the front of line of people trying to figure out who actually won the election and how the error happened, instead of preparing to take office and get his administration in place.

[Overt]

I'll likely still vote for the guy, but I tend to agree with you here.

I will also note that what truly split the libertarian party was the sneering contempt that half the party showed for people on the right. "Sure, I guess you should have the right to not wear a mask, but you are a selfish bastard if you do!" This was the stance taken by ENB and Soave, among others. And it seems to be the stance taken by Chase, though I have not seen it directly. For the record, the science is clear now that masking never was a selfless act. It was a performative show that did not work. But even if the science were NOT clear, if your impulse is to call people morally bad if they don't automatically give charity to others, then you are going to be a poor libertarian.

Again, it isn't clear to me how much of the sneering Chase Oliver was involved in- it was definitely oozing from the ENB/Jo Joergeson wing of the party, and it is largely why the Mises Caucus was able to systematically take over the party in state after state.

[tracerv]

All those words and you are still voting for him. JFC. The word simp comes to mind.

Might want to sit this one out Champ.

[Overt]

Reading your vomit, the word "idiot" comes to mind. You provide no value to this discussion, or really any that I have seen you participate in...so maybe you should be the one sitting it out?

[chemjeff radical individualist]

I will also note that what truly split the libertarian party was the sneering contempt that half the party showed for people on the right.

Ya know, the sneering goes both ways. The libertarianism I espouse is basically derived from the Harry Browne era, late 90's/early 00's. Now I'm told, by the RON PAUL/Mises Caucus crowd, that I'm a "left wing progressive" for advocating for liberty for everyone, and not their extremely narrow version of it.

I don't know what precisely is the type of liberty that the RP/MC crowd advocates for, but it certainly isn't the universalist type that I was told, and I continue to believe, is the foundation of libertarianism.

"Liberty is the birthright of all mankind!"
"Absolutely! Well... except for illegals, and except for communists, and except for drag queens, and except for non-citizens, and except for them, and those people, and...."

[Overt]

“The libertarianism I espouse is basically derived from the Harry Browne era”

You are full of shit, Chemjeff. Look up any culture war issue and Harry Browne’s position was generally, “I agree with the conservatives here, but it isn’t the government’s place to opine.” You have never once on this site offered anything close to that position.

A perfect example was your embarrassing display during COVID. The Browneian (but left leaning) response would have been, “You know I think masks are effective, but this is not the place of government to interfere.” Instead, your arguments were, “If you people would wear the mask, government wouldn’t have to mandate it.”

Browne’s entire platform, which can still be found on the wayback machine, was all about trying to convince conservatives to adopt limited government. Meanwhile your schtick is to call conservatives icky people, and attack their motivations.

If you had spent a fraction your energy making pro-liberty cases instead of just anti-right-of-AOC cases, I'd still enjoy talking with you.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

“The libertarianism I espouse is basically derived from the Harry Browne era”

This is the absolute truth and I don't give a shit if you don't believe me.

A perfect example was your embarrassing display during COVID. The Browneian (but left leaning) response would have been, “You know I think masks are effective, but this is not the place of government to interfere.”

Which is exactly my position.

Instead, your arguments were, “If you people would wear the mask, government wouldn’t have to mandate it.”

Which is a mischaracterization of an OBSERVATION based on how I perceive government power to work, which tends to be:

1. People notice that there is a problem
2. People go to the government and say "you must do something to fix this problem!"
3. Government "fixes" the problem in the worst possible way, inevitably leading to more problems.

So my suggestion is, if individuals, VOLUNTARILY, decide to solve an existing problem so that hordes of people don't feel compelled to go to the government demanding a fix to the problem (because the problem has largely been ameliorated), then we would never get to step 2 and step 3. THAT'S IT.

Please, tell me where this logic is flawed. You can't, because you would rather listen to the Jesse's spin their tall tales instead of talking to me.

[DesigNate]

We don’t believe you because you constantly demonstrate it to be a lie.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

If you had spent a fraction your energy making pro-liberty cases instead of just anti-right-of-AOC cases, I’d still enjoy talking with you.

Oh, and Overt: fuck you. I get called every name in the book for standing up in favor of libertarian positions. At first I tried to be polite and respectful, but no, the right-wing assholes around here didn't reciprocate and decided to be mean and spiteful and to call anyone who didn't toe the conservative line as "left wing progressives" and worse. Around here, anyone who doesn't favor mass deportations - you know, the libertarian position - is basically an America-hater who wants to see the country conquered by invading barbarians. And so now you come along, and dare to lecture me for not bending over backwards to be polite to the assholes when they have showed me nothing but contempt in return. I don't have infinite patience and I will not be lectured to by someone who has not been subjected to this level of abuse for doing nothing more than advocating for *standard libertarian positions*.

[DesigNate]

“…for standing up in favor of libertarian positions.”

Okay, Mr. Bears-in-Trunks.

[Dillinger]

>>he believes that the nonsurgical transitioning of minors should be decided by doctors, parents, and kids

I'm sorry but real-time clinical testing on monkeys of any age is an automatic DQ

[NoVaNick]

Is it me or are the LP candidates getting progressively shittier? In the past, I’d vote for them just to show my distaste for the big two, but it will be nearly impossible this time.

[JesseAz (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

In 2016 the LPe tried adopting the lefts cares after trying to get away from Trump and the right. We've seen the consistent adoption of things like anti racism, favored groups, or other liberal care about.

So in short, yes. They've gotten shittier.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Shittier as Libertarians, for sure. But how do you rate them as Libertines?

[Overt]

Jo Joergenson was 10000x worse than Chase Oliver. Bill Weld was 50x worse.

[Sevo, 5-30-24, embarrassment]

Assertions absent evidence can be ignored.

[MWAocdoc]

The LP has no path to success along either of the premises upon which it rests. The only potentially successful political path for libertarians is to totally eliminate the two-party election system for representatives at every level - at the very least State representatives and Congress. There is near zero chance that anyone other than a Democrat or a Republican will ever get elected to state legislatures or to Congress until Proportional Representation is implemented. Since the LP has never tried to achieve that goal and, as far as I can tell, has no plans to ever try, there is no point in having or participating in a libertarian party. So why should they be serious? The LP is now just another Comicon for libertarian cosplay.

[CE]

Being from a safe Blue state, I would reluctantly and strategically vote for Chase Oliver this time.... but I won't because my state has the "top two" primary system designed to kill off 3rd parties in the womb.

[MWAocdoc]

To my disgust, the Washington State LP was a co-plaintiff in the lawsuit that resulted in "top two," thus committing political suicide for us libertarians in Washington State.

[ducksalad]

Top-two in the November presidential general election?

I believe you are mistaken. And yes, I know about California, and they don’t have top two for presidential elections.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

I love how commenters around here are holding Chase Oliver to a FAR higher standard than the one to which they hold the person that they are really going to vote for, Trump.

“Oh no, Chase is sometimes inarticulate.” You mean, as inarticulate as the guy who mused about what to do if you were on an electric boat and you were attacked by a shark – would you get electrocuted or devoured by the shark instead? Like that guy?

“Oh no, Chase isn’t 100% ideologically pure.” You mean, like the guy who has had no sincerely held position on any issue whatsoever?

“Oh no, Chase is an empty suit with no substance.” You mean, like the guy who was a reality TV star and whose entire schtick is rallies full of entertainment and glitz?

There is no perfect candidate and the comparison between real candidates is always relative. Is Chase Oliver the ideal perfect candidate? No. Is he the most libertarian candidate in the race? Yes.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

Has Trump ever said he supported child genital mutilation on a teacher's say-so, over parental objections?

[chemjeff radical individualist]

No, he hasn't. Something that he has in common with Chase.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

Bananas have never said 2+2 = 4. What is your point?

[ducksalad]

What was your point?

[sarcasmic]

They're trying to convince themselves that it's OK to vote for Trump.

[Mother's Lament]

It is okay to vote for Trump.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

Sure it is, if you support right-wing authoritarianism.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Yup, remember the concentration camps in 2019?

[MWAocdoc]

Hitler didn’t start concentration camps until AFTER he eliminated elections in Germany. Don’t try to do history or logic here – you don’t do it that well. Also, Hitler did a term in prison for trying to start a revolution before it had any chance to succeed.

[Mother's Lament]

Sure it is, if you support right-wing authoritarianism.

Trump never removed his opponent from a ballot. Team Jeffy did.
Trump never used the Government against his opponent. Team Jeffy did.
Trump never censored speech. Team Jeffy did.

But somehow Trump is the threat to freedom and Team Jeffy isn't.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

1. Team Trump bans abortions
2. Team Trump bans books from schools - when were the book banners ever the good guys?
3. "vermin"
4. "they're poisoning the blood of the nation"
5. "dictator for a day"
6. "vote for me and you won't need to vote again"
7. The illegals are the scapegoats for all that's wrong in the country, up to and including cannibalism(!). And if it's not the illegals, it's CHAY-NA
8. Team Trump wants to ban flag burning
9. Team Trump wants to ban online pornography
10. Team Trump wants to raise your taxes via tariffs on CHAY-NA
11. "MASS DEPORTATIONS"
12. And more generally, Team Trump exudes an ethos that they are the only ones who deserve to be counted as "real patriots", that you're either with them or you're a traitor to America. That is highly offensive.

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

Other than mass deportations, which are an awesome thing, pretty much everything else is bullshit.

Just like you.

[DesigNate]

What a bunch of unmitigated bullshit.

1. No, they didn’t.
2. No books were banned. And even the books that were deemed age inappropriate to be in elementary schools, that was by state governments, not the Trump Admin. (Why you insist on dying on the hill of having books in elementary and middle school libraries that respect a young male giving head to an adult male is a complete mystery.)
3. Marxists and Nazis ARE vermin. You know, the people he actually called that. (Well just ignore that you didn’t say shit when the left/media were calling him and MAGA the same thing).
4. I’m inclined to give you, even though mass illegal/uninvited immigration of one group into another groups territory has never worked out well for the people already living there.
5. There was more context to that comment. I believe it was in regards to border control.
6. Way to misconstrue the whole quote. Nevermind he didn’t do any of this dictatorial shit after he lost.
7. China does a lot of horrible shit and illegal immigration is such a huge problem that blue city mayors are talking tough on it.
8. Fuck him for that stance. Team Kamala wants to ban hate speech and disinformation/misinformation.
9. I’ve not heard that one. Is that part of his Agenda 47? If so, fuck him for that too. (I guarantee that will get bipartisan support the second he made it about not exploiting women)
10. So did Biden (and this presumably Kamala). Trump also wants to keep your income taxes low.
11. Yes, when your preferred policy results in massive nationwide problems, solutions are going to be less than ideal. Maybe stop advocating for no fucking borders.
12. Nearly the entire left exudes an ethos of destroying capitalism/the ideals of the Enlightment/Western Civilization. They are actual Fascists (some are outright Marxists), as in private ownership of the means of production but fully directed by the state.

[Zeb]

Or if you think it is preferable to left-wing authoritarianism. Aside from covid stuff, which I think he handled badly, I don't really see anything that happened under Trump that is particularly more authoritarian than what happened with any other presidents of my lifetime (which started with Carter).

Whoever gets elected, the government is going to continue to have way too much power and spend way too much money. Personally, I'd choose not to vote or vote for someone guaranteed to lose. But I can understand people deciding to make what they see as a pragmatic choice between the two candidates who might conceivably win the election.

[Overt]

And let us note that it is not Republicans that show total authoritarian impulses in poll after poll. It is democrats who believe the government should stop misinformation, even if it tramples on the first amendment. It is democrats who believe that the alphabet soup organizations in the government should be trusted. They are literally authoritarian and they are voting for it. If Trump was really the authoritarian Chemjeff accuses him of, then democrats would overwhelmingly vote for him.

[JesseAz (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

Like you and Jeff have been trying to convince yourselves youre libertarian.

[A Thinking Mind]

If I'm casting a vote for someone who can't win, that vote needs to accurately represent my positions, or at least come close enough, so that it represents how to keep earning my vote. If it's a suit full of empty platitudes that can't even articulate libertarian positions properly, it's not worth a signaling vote. I might as well either not vote or just latch onto whichever major party candidate disturbs me less.

[Overt]

Since I am the one who you are referencing, why don't you actually reply to my post?

Oh that would be because you know I am not voting for Trump, and it is much easier for you to cherry pick arguments and conflate arguments and posts into an easy-to-fight strawman.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

Since I am the one who you are referencing

I'm actually not, at least not specifically. I'm referring to the broad swath of commenters who decided that because Chase is not 100% pure, they just *must* vote for Trump who is at best accidentally libertarian in fleeting moments. If you choose to self-identify with this crowd, then that is your call, not mine.

[Overt]

"I’m actually not"

Oh for fucks sake. I am the only person in this thread who used the word "articulate" prior to your post- you know, the word you used in your strawman quote. You are such a spineless coward that you can't even stand behind your own words.

Please, show me where I choose to "self-identify" with "this crowd" that you have conflated me with.

[ducksalad]

I’ll take a shot at it.

But first, congratulations on not voting for Trump or Harris, and for being willing to criticize the candidate you might still vote for, rather than the mindless gainsaying.

I’m inclined to agree with Chemjeff here on the “articulate” issue. Yeah, right up front he stopped and rephrased a sentence. You seem to think it indicates he doesn’t understand the difference between money and wealth; I took it exactly the opposite – he started using common everyday language, which conflates the two, then decided this audience understood the difference and he corrected in real time for that.

I think your rather subtle distinction that SS should be eliminated but could be reformed is correct but a bit pedantic. In practice it doesn’t matter because right now the major parties aren’t considering either, so waiting for the reform is equivalent to waiting for the collapse.

And while I fully understand that you aren’t rooting for Trump or Harris here, I can’t help pointing out that (a) each of them misspeaks way more than Oliver does, and on the SS issue you’ve got Trump saying (caps his):

“FIGHT FOR AND PROTECT SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE WITH NO CUTS, INCLUDING NO CHANGES TO THE RETIREMENT AGE,”

while Harris

“was a co-sponsor of the Social Security Expansion Act, which calls for raising taxes on the wealthy while making Social Security benefits more generous.”
—-
In a later comment, you complain about the so-called ENB wing “sneering” at the MAGA-MC libertarians. Fair complaint. The sneering was unhelpful, although I doubt polite engagement would’ve worked much better.

Meanwhile, the MAGA-MC crowd here routinely calls us pedophile, commie, pervert, turd, liar, and worst of all Democrat. Mere sneering would be a massive improvement.

[Overt]

Chase is the spokesperson for libertarian values. He has zero chance of winning any election. His sole purpose is to articulate the libertarian case and hopefully push the electorate towards libertarian thinking. So I'm sorry if I have a high standard for his primary job.

And in this milquetoast interview by the most sympathetic of voices, he couldn't speak straight. It isn't just that he confused wealth and money. It isn't just that he mischaracterized Social Security. It is that he does this throughout the interview on policy after policy after policy item.

[ducksalad]

Yeah, calling Oliver inarticulate after that Biden-Trump debate shows some serious lack of perspective.

First, he's far more articulate than Trump, Biden, OR Harris, and by an order of magnitude.

Second, articulate doesn't correlate with good policy. Obama was articulate. Bill Clinton was articulate. And going the other way, Coolidge had few words.

[DesigNate]

It follows a trend of the LP nominee not really being ready for the big show.

They should really focus their energy on state elections or trying to get a Representative or two.

[Kungpowderfinger]

…and he believes that the nonsurgical transitioning of minors should be decided by doctors, parents, and kids without the state intervening

Well that’s all I need to know about Chase Oliver, you silly cosmo fucks.

[NoVaNick]

Well, the state generally does not interfere in most healthcare decisions for children and their parents. There is no law that children have to be vaccinated, for example. There is a law forbidding FGM though, which trans surgery on kids essentially is (but no law on MGM, which the medical establishment encourages).

[MWAocdoc]

This is simply not true. Many states have a law that require vaccination of children before they can attend public school while requiring them to attend public school. Also, many states have laws to punish parents for child abuse for failing to allow them to have medically necessary treatments. This discussion is already silly enough without injecting falsehoods into it.

[SIV]

Why do the public polls exclude the LP candidate? I'd figure "Bug" Chase Oliver is good for 4th place but after the two major party candidates it's just RFK Jr, Jill Stein and Cornel West.

[Gaear Grimsrud]

Dunno about West but he won't beat Stein. He's not even worth a protest vote.

[Mother's Lament]

Christopher Hitchens 2009 vs chemjeff Keir Starmer 2004

[sarcasmic]

Just so I understand this, if you do not want government busybodies to override decisions made by parents and doctors, then you're a leftist. Is that about right?

[Mother's Lament]

No, but that is some fine strawman weaving.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Hey, fucktard, if parents, and their doctor, decide that little Jimmy and Shinequa are just too much trouble and decide to put them down (and bury them in the basement), are you fine with that?

[sarcasmic]

I certainly would have been fine if your parents decided that.

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

I would be just fine with you making an attempt to back up your drunken threats, so I would have a legal basis to beat you half to death.

Are you my huckleberry?

[MWAocdoc]

This is a strawman argument, sarc. Some things should be illegal and some things should be left to parents, children and doctors. The discussion is about WHICH things should be illegal – or at least discouraged with penalties for malpractice – and which things should not be illegal.

[Mother's Lament]

This is a strawman argument, sarc.

Sarckles may not be the brightest poster here, but he's a national treasure when it comes to crafting fine strawmen. His work should feature in the Smithsonian.

[sarcasmic]

Speaking of strawmen, the people attacking Chase argue against chopping up minors, while he says nonsurgical therapy decisions should be decided without government. I tend to agree. Doctors and parents know a lot more about their specific circumstances than internet assholes and the politicians they endorse.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

No no no. A REAL LIBERTARIAN wants to enforce strict gender roles onto all children via coercive government. That is the apotheosis of liberty right there!

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

No you fat pedophile, a real libertarian keeps people like you from introducing pedophilia and mutilation to children in government schools.

[Overt]

The problem, Sarc, is around chemical treatment of minors.

If you pump someone full of drugs that create irreversible changes to the body, how is that different from surgery?

When this all started out, a meme went through the internet that "Puberty Blockers" just allow you to delay puberty, suggesting that if someone changes their mind, they could just stop taking them.

It is not clear to me whether Oliver is under this mistaken understanding. If he is, then he is one of many dupes who were caught up in the initial rounds of this. But if he does know that taking puberty blockers causes irreversible changes to the body, then his entire rationale in the video is wrong. His logic used to say children shouldn't get cosmetic surgery under 18 would also preclude the use of drugs to block puberty.

[ducksalad]

That’s a fair way to characterize it. But it remains that the critics here are after Oliver for wanting too little government on this issue. (And BTW they have some decent arguments.)

What’s irritating me here is the constant and repeated false accusation that he wants the state to override the parents’ decision and force a transition, when actually that’s the exact opposite of what he said. The accusers themselves are the ones proposing a state override of the parents, albeit a possibly justified one.

[JesseAz (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

Hey. Defend a strawman with a strawman.

The problem is Chase's stance is nonsensical from a logical perspective. Chase does support government intervention for disallowing surgery but does not for medical castration. There is no logical reason for that line medically nor politically except to split the baby. It isnt idealistic in any manner. It ignores actual science.

[Overt]

I can only assume that he doesn't realize that puberty blockers cause permanent changes to the body. To be fair, there are numerous different drugs out there.

That said, even simple hormone treatments have permanent and lasting changes to the body if they are administered during puberty, when your body is locking in all sorts of physical attributes. I don't think he has thought through what all of this means, and that is largely because the activists who are pushing this have outright lied about the effects of gender drugs.

[ducksalad]

Seems like the old argument that you either have to support all elective abortions or none of them, because consistency or something.

I think we’re all OK with pierced ears and all not OK with the kid and parents going for a quadruple amputation. Someplace in between there is going to be line, and you can always argue it should have been elsewhere.

Even if, as you and Ove say, the end harm is the same, I can see why someone might draw the line between pills and surgery. There’s at least some chance of backing out at the early stages of a medical transition; it requires ongoing consent rather than a one time impulse; there is less cash incentive for the doctor to push it; and while the damage might be permanent there's still something there.

And on top of the all that, my understanding is that the surgical cases usually get the medical also, so the medical is only a subset of the harm.

[DesigNate]

I mean, yes.

I fully admit that it’s not logically consistent to be morally opposed to abortion after 16-20 weeks but okay with it before then or Plan B being readily svailable.

[But SkyNet is a Private Company]

Is no one else going to point out how there is a case For and against Harris, but only a case against Trump?

That should disqualify anything that follows from appearing in a Libertarian-ish mag. Its peak Jeffsarc

[Rick James]

"When dumb celebrities transition their children"

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

But a trans kid is THE fashion accessory of the 2020s.

[mad.casual]

it's almost tailor made to be making the argument that homophobes used to make which is that there's an agenda

Again, so close.

Six blind men , a progressive, British documentarian (who's having his country ripped out of him by politicians who hate him), and an elephant:
Blind Man #1: I feel a large round pillar.
Blind Man #2: I feel a rope.
Blind Man #3: I feel a snake.
Blind Man #4: I feel a kind of fan or large leaf.
Blind Man #5: I feel a bulging wall.
Blind Man #6: I feel a kind of rigid spear-like object.
British Documentarian: All of these things together seem tailor-made to describe an elephant.
Frank Dreben voiceover: But, like a blind British school boy in a Turkish bathhouse, the documentarian was just going to have to feel things out for himself.

[Sevo, 5-30-24, embarrassment]

The issue here is, simply, his comments might just as well be those of the trash-man who emptied my garbage cans today: The L party is irrelevant, and he represents the portion of it probably least relevant at all.
Why are you wasting bandwidth on this crap?

[MWAocdoc]

Well, Sevo, the issue is WHY the LP is irrelevant. The reason the LP is irrelevant is because libertarians think the only choice for us is "pragmatism vs. purist advocacy" when, in fact, there is at least one very important alternative that ALL of us should be pushing: elimination of the two-party election system by all available means.

[ducksalad]

All available means, Malcolm?

Unfortunately, right now the most realistic (but still remote) scenario for bringing down the two-party system is the losing side in an election - doesn't matter which one - deciding to kick over the entire system, with the duopoly being one bright spot in a long and dismal casualty list. Not sure I'm ready for that method.

The second most likely is that one of the major parties collapses under it's own internal contradictions, leaving us with a pure one-party system, or one party plus ankle biters tolerated only as long as they stay insignificant.

The third most likely is some charismatic independent winning with 34-33-33 and causing at least a realignment. Unfortunately such a candidate is more likely to be a demagogue than a libertarian.

Feeling kind of pessimistic right now. A lot of people, maybe even a majority, are upset with the two party system, but as long as we've got a tolerable standard of living and survivable level of civil disorder, they're not upset enough to do much about it.

[sarcasmic]

A lot of people, maybe even a majority, are upset with the two party system, but as long as we’ve got a tolerable standard of living and survivable level of civil disorder, they’re not upset enough to do much about it.

I think it's a combination of two things. First the duopoly has most people convinced that they're throwing their vote away if they don't support the duopoly, and the other is that the duopoly has people so fearful of the other side of the coin that they feel that they must vote against the side they perceive to be worse. The result is very few people actually voting for something they want, but rather voting against the end of the world in the most important election of their lifetime.

[ducksalad]

Agreed, that's a big part of what's going on, especially with a base of each party. It's certainly what drives some commenters here.

OTOH I do meet a fair number of people (not on the Internet) who just don't care much about politics and vote on name recognition or whatever their friends are voting for.

[Sevo, 5-30-24, embarrassment]

Stuff your TDS up your ass, slimy pile of shit.

[ducksalad]

It was a mistake to include your real name in your username. Just sayin'.

[Sevo, 5-30-24, embarrassment]

Please do as I say; your head is begging for company, TDS-addled pile of shit.

[Sevo, 5-30-24, embarrassment]

"...there is at least one very important alternative that ALL of us should be pushing: elimination of the two-party election system by all available means."

And a pony.

[Sevo, 5-30-24, embarrassment]

I'll be a bit more specific here:
Parties did not come about from gov't action; they are Ferguson's 'network' as opposed to 'hierarchal' structures; how do you propose to eliminate any network, other than by hierarchal coercion?

[mad.casual]

he believes that the nonsurgical transitioning of minors should be decided by doctors, parents, and kids without the state intervening

Seems like there's a pretty straightforward question about what he thinks about non-surgical gay conversion therapy that would pretty decisively clears up any questions about Oliver's honesty and understanding about libertarianism or utilitarian intellectual consistency that everyone keeps avoiding.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

Well, I just finished listening to the podcast.

Chase gives standard and correct libertarian answers to pretty much all the questions. I don't understand why some people think that this isn't enough.

I particularly liked his proposed solution for Social Security, at least to a first approximation. His proposal is for the employee to keep his share of the contribution and invest it in his/her own retirement fund, while the employer portion continues to go to the government to pay for the current retirement costs of those who have come to depend on it. Once those obligations are met, then that contribution can cease. It is simple and elegant. Of course there are a lot of details to work out but again as a first approximation I think it is good.

His one big weakness I think is that his foreign policy ideas seem rather naive. But frankly that is par for the course for libertarian thought, and is pretty standard for presidential challengers who are complete outsiders. I don't really think it is a major ding against him.

Yes he had that one slip up at the beginning about inflation "creating wealth" when he meant "creating dollars", which he soon corrected. It is miniscule compared to the endless word salads that both Turnip and Kamalamadingdong subject us to.

Overall I thought it was a great interview.

[DesigNate]

“…because he is not part of the national party's Mises Caucus…”

Granted it’s a small sample size, but I don’t think anyone here dislikes him cause he’s gay or not part of the Mises Caucus.

[Sevo, 5-30-24, embarrassment]

I neither like nor dislike him; he is irrelevant. Trump is not and has done well in his last term.
Chase is irrelevant; he can cause no change in the fed gov't actions no matter what he whines about: He is irrelevant!

[Uomo Del Ghiaccio]

My issues with Chase are not with war or economics, but rather on his embrace of several social issues and how he presents himself in a woke fashion.

I don't care what a persons sexual preference is assuming that it is legal and don't believe that it has any bearing fitness for any job or office. I do have a problem when a person makes their sexual preference the focus. There is a fine line between acknowledging that you are married or have a partner and being overt and in your face.

This applies to both homosexuals and heterosexuals equally. When I take a walk to a park, I don't like to witness two people groping each other regardless of the possible combinations. Chase needs to not deny, but not campaign on his sexual preferences.

A child is a minor and lacks full rights primarily because the are still developing cognitively and physically and are deemed to lack the ability to make certain decisions. Obviously it is a sliding scale where as they age they gain more rights and are more capable to make decisions.

Life altering decisions should be make by the actual person, but when they are capable to make the decision. This should not be made by a proxy, not the parents and not the state. The decision for sexual mutilation or chemical mutilation should wait until the child is of age and can make the decision for themselves.

Clothes are not permanent and neither are hair length, make-up, names. Reasonable piercings or tattoos are less hazardous, probably should wait but not usually catastrophic and like altering.
Chemical castration has long term effects and sexual mutilation is permanent.

I don't like Chase's response to COVID and Lock-downs and he seems to likely capitulate to the swamp.

[It's only a paper moon, Nominalists]

I am the true Libertarian. Like Millei and Villareul I say :“Abortion is a murder aggravated by the bond [between mother and child] and the difference in strength” -- there you go the ole Libertarian slavery argument : Alveda King (niece of MLK) …How can the “Dream” survive if we murder the children? Every aborted baby is like a slave in the womb of his or her mother. The mother decides his or her fate…If the Dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is to live, our babies must live. Our mothers must choose life.