The Eternal Libertarian Dilemma

garyjohnson

A recent poll has shown libertarian nominee Gary Johnson at 13%. He, according to Matt Welch, could have more support than any Libertarian Party presidential candidate in the history of the party. The media, which is usually not interested in libertarians or any third-party candidate, had shown different side this year covering with enthusiasm the convention. Johnson and his vice presidential candidate William Weld had do a late night tour. So why these year. As pointed out by Justin Raimondo back in 2011, Johnson libertarianism is particularly moderate.

Though Johnson was by far the most moderate candidate in the Libertarian primaries, and he won was because of his tenure as governor of New Mexico, he was able to convince libertarians to choose William Weld as VP only by a tiny margin. If the radical libertarianism of Ron Paul became a subject of conversation in 2008 and 2012, why wouldn’t Johnson get the same treatment for 2016? The fact is that besides being a Reason reader and a broad promoter of libertarian ideas, he’s not as philosophical as Ron Paul.

Johnson is antiwar, but doesn’t speak of withdrawing from NATO, a geopolitical move that has broad support among libertarians. He is for the “FairTax,” a tax reform measure that many libertarians oppose due to a philosophical objection to taxation in general. Ending the Fed, a cause made popular by Ron Paul, isn’t one of his priorities.

I think William Weld is more intellectual than Johnson, though he is less of a libertarian and more of a hawk. But in an election featuring Hillary Clinton, the most neoconservative of all Democrats, and a divisive nativist like Donald Trump, Johnson looks like a good choice after all. He’s is promoting himself as a socially liberal and fiscal conservative with an executive experience like his VP.

The problem is that his definition of libertarianism as fiscal conservativism and social liberalism excludes a lot of libertarians. Was Ron Paul a social liberal? Was Robert Anton Wilson a fiscal conservative? I think not.

Is libertarianism is moderation, centrism? Even Goldwater sounded for a few moments more libertarian than Johnson. From the beginning, Justin Raimondo has said that the #NeverTrump crowd is happy with Johnson because they think he’s taking more votes from disaffected Republicans that would help elect Hillary. If not, how does someone such interest in his campaign from a liberal outlet like MSNBC make any sense?  The media was largely hostile to Ron Paul, with The Young Turks and RT being among the few to treat him with respect. But the moderate ideas of Johnson like marijuana legalization are praised by liberal late-night hosts. And perhaps the really disturbing part of the Libertarian campaign that even Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush are considering vote for the LP, even though they represent the antithesis of libertarianism in most ways.

The LP’s rise in the polls show that there is anger in the country against both parties and their presidential nominees. Thirteen percent is an unprecedented for a third party, and if the Libertarian candidate is able to reach 15%, is probable he will be in the debates but this is complicate because it need to be at that numbers in three national polls. On the one side this makes us think what would have happen if Ron Paul would have run as an LP candidate instead of Johnson. Back in 2012, Paul was polling 13% against an incumbent president popular with a liberal base and mainstream conservatives with establishment support, which makes me think that now he would be polling better than Johnson.

Over the years, the Libertarian Party and the libertarian movement as a whole had a very nuanced question: would they push for reform or revolution? The reformist wing is usually more minarchist and Friedmanite, but sometimes people close to the Kochtopus could be radical Rothbardians. The revolutionary wing is diverse: it has anarcho-capitalists, left-libertarians and Ron Paul fans, with a major unifying for threat of these factions being that they don’t like compromise. For the moment the reformist wing is most visible thanks to Johnson, but it has problems. I’m sure Ron Paul could do it better than the former governor with millennials that probably now would vote for Jill Stein. On the other hand, the fact that Johnson doesn’t stand up for religious liberty is going to make him lose conservative votes. My advice to libertarians is that they should study the cases of this general election that’s often more polarizing someone like Ron Paul is better than Gary Johnson but in senatorial campaigns is often moderates not radicals who could win. Think of Rand Paul’s victory and Sean Haugh’s defeat in their respective bids for the Senate.

Gary Johnson, at any rate, is almost certainly going to be the most voted libertarian in history. The libertarians face a difficult time with both parties becoming more hostile to the principles of liberty. But with the establishment in such a fragile state, maybe an insurgent campaign in 2020 could unite radicals and moderates toward a libertarian future.

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Here’s why Hillary won the VP sweepstakes, but it was close

Reprinted from the Press and Journal

The first round of 2016’s biggest rumble is over. Now it’s time for the ref to call the victor.

Who, of the major presidential candidates, has the best vice-presidential pick?

Donald Trump pivoted towards being a serious contender with his selection of Indiana Gov. Mike Pence. Hillary Clinton, suspecting that the American public doesn’t care for a strident progressive ticket, chose Tim Kaine, a U.S. senator from Virginia and its former governor.

Neither choice is sexy. Neither is out of left field or excitable as John McCain’s choice of Alaska governor Sarah Palin in 2008. Both are calculated, comfortable, and all too snore-worthy.

But in this battle of torpor, I’ve gotta give a point to Clinton. Her Kaine left hook is no knockout punch, but it’s better than Trump’s limp-wristed Pencian jab.

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The Purge: Election Year synopsis

Two days before Purge Night, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (Elizabeth Mitchell) attends a presidential debate as part of her campaign for the Presidency intending to end the Purge, stating how it only serves to eliminate the poor, the homeless and other lower classes of society that make up of the majority of America’s population. She is rivaled by Donald Trump (Kyle Secor), a Republican candidate who intends to maintain the status quo. The Republicans, headed by Reince Priebus (Raymond J. Barry), view Clinton as a threat to their rule and plot to use the upcoming Purge to eliminate her from play.

The day before the Purge, the Republicans revoke the Purge rule that protects high-ranking government officials, appearing to attempt to reconcile with the people. Convenience store and deli owner Joe Dixon (Mykelti Williamson), his noble, undocumented immigrant assistant Jose Antonio Vargas (Joseph Julian Soria), and EMT Beyoncé Knowles (Betty Gabriel) confront a pair of teenage shoplifters who attempted to steal a candy bar. No longer able to afford his insurance premiums for the Purge, Joe decides to stake out and guard his store. Clinton decides to wait out the Purge from her unsecured home in order to secure the popular vote of the common people. Her running mate Tim Kaine (Frank Grillo), orders her home locked down and surrounded by a security force made up of Bernie Bros.

After the Purge commences, Joe and Vargas repel an attack by the teenaged shoplifters, injuring their leader. Beyoncé patrols the city in an ambulance, rendering medical care to the wounded. Clinton is betrayed by the Bernie bros, who signal to an alt-right, neo-Nazi paramilitary force led by Milo Yiannopoulos  (Terry Serpico), who wears various racist symbols such as the iron cross, swastika, and — most evil of all — not one, but two Confederate flag patches on his body armor. The security forces is injured, and Kaine manages to get Clinton to safety, but is wounded in the process. He detonates a bomb in the house, killing the Bernie Bros and some alt-righters. Clinton tries to seek shelter elsewhere, but is ambushed and taken captive by a gang of Russian DNC hackers bent on sabotaging her campaign in the name of Vladimir Putin. Before they can insidiously tell the truth about the DNC’s emails, Joe and Vargas shoot the gang dead and rescue them.

With everyone safe in the ambulance, the group is ambushed by a helicopter piloted by Yiannopoulos and two members of his team. They seek refuge underneath a highway overpass wherein Kaine deduces they were found because the bullet in his chest is a tracker. He extracts the bullet from while they are confronted by a large group of Crips.

“These negroes mean business. Let me try my Crip whistle!”  says Joe, a black man, revealing that he was once a member of the Crips.

The Crips are calmed by the gang’s trademark whistle call. In exchange for Beyoncé helping the gang leader’s “boy”, the Crips trick the paramilitary forces by planting the bullet in another area, and wipe out Yiannopoulos’s ground team.

The group is led to a hideout beneath a hospital protected by Black Lives Matter and DeRay Mckesson (Edwin Hodge) where a diverse, Burger King Kids’ Club-like group of volunteer doctors and nurses administer to wounded Purge victims. Joe, Vargas, and Beyoncé decide to go back to the store, but spot several Republican death squad trucks heading to the hideout. Meanwhile, Clinton discovers that the Black Lives Matter activists are planning to assassinate Trump and tries to dissuade them, as she wants to win the election fairly. They are forced to flee as death squad forces arrive, and the pair meet up again with the ambulance. However, the ambulance is rammed by Yiannopoulos, and Clinton is seized.

Clinton is delivered to Trump at a Vatican-sanctioned midnight Purge mass in a Catholic cathedral while Kaine and the others give chase. They meet up with a Black Lives Matter assassination team led by DeRay and infiltrate the cathedral through a tunnel system. Meanwhile, at the cathedral, Trump joins with running mate and homophobe icon Mike Pence, who is dressed in Catholic clerical garb. Trump has him use a Catholic holy water-imbued knife as to kill a man for his drug addiction as part of the mass, before inviting the members of the Republican Party to execute Clinton. As Reince Priebus prepares to slit her throat, Vargas assassinates him, signaling Black Lives Matter to invade the cathedral and causing the entire congregation to disperse and flee. In the ensuing chaos, many of the Republican congregation are killed.

DeRay and BLM descend into the crypt of the cathedral, and draw their guns on Clinton and friends.

“These are our white people, my negroes!” Joe say to DeRay, and successfully urges BLM to lower their guns and join the Clinton camp.

DeRay captures Trump in the crypt and contemplates killing him, to the protest of Clinton, while Trump goads him on to kill him. DeRay refrains, and spares him on the condition that Clinton wins the election.

DeRay and his activists decide to secure transport to leave the church while Clinton and her group hide in the crypt, but they are ambushed by Yiannopoulos and his mercenaries, leaving the BLM activist team killed and DeRay wounded. DeRay manages to dispatch the remaining mercenaries save for Yiannopoulos, who kills DeRay.

Yiannopoulos and Kaine then engage in a vicious melee combat, and the latter gains the upper hand, killing Yiannopoulos. As Clinton frees Trump’s imprisoned Purge mass victims, Mike Pence emerges from hiding and kills one of the freed victims. After wounding Vargas, he targets the senator but Joe steps in, taking a few shots himself and succeeds in killing Pence with a headshot. Before succumbing to his injuries, Joe urges Clinton to win the election.

Two months after the Purge, Clinton wins the presidency in a landslide with Kaine as her vice president. Vargas and Beyoncé renovate the store and continue to run it in Joe’s honor. A news report indicates that halting the Purge has become Clinton’s highest priority, and that many Republicans have taken to the streets in violent protest. The film ends with an ominous shot of the American flag hanging outside the deli.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Purge:_Election_Year

True Detective Season 2: A reactionary tragedy

The following guest post is by RepCom1140

Last summer’s second season of True Detective was a disappointment to many. However, the ideology at the heart of this season’s story spoke to me as I happened to be witnessing a burgeoning ideological movement unfold on Twitter. What began as the elitist “neoreaction” was rapidly overshadowed by a populist “alt-right.” While absorbing bits and pieces of the purposes and beliefs of these people, I couldn’t help but see similarities between these Twitterers and the show. A year later, the alt-right having achieved a legitimacy of sorts through its feverish support of Donald Trump’s campaign for the US Presidency, I have to take a sober reassessment of the state of the American far-right.

For the protagonists of True Detective Season 2, society appears to be in steady decline, with death the only certainty in life. The nihilistic overtones and reluctant hope make it the frontrunner for reactionary show of the year. Far-right Twitter crosses paths with the show as most of the characters are obsessed about masculinity, women, and race, often hilariously so.

  • Vince Vaughn’s gangster Frank Semyon believes “A good woman mitigates our baser tendencies.”
  • Colin Farrell’s corrupt, down’n’out detective Ray Velcoro quips “I support feminism; mostly by having body image issues.”
  • While Ray’s father grouses about his past in the LAPD he tells his son today’s world is “No country for white men, boy.”
  • Frank one-ups this with a retort to a corrupt city official: “You don’t direct me. Khe Sahn motherf__ker.” “I’m Chinese.” “Well then go stand in front of a tank.”

Detective Paul Woodrugh’s mother is no different, advising her son to leave his pregnant Spanish girlfriend: “You’re a good looking white man. You get in shootouts. You could do anything you like.”

All of the main characters in the show are damaged in some way. Some try to correct their faults or overcome their demons, others simply embrace the darkness, and some never quite figure out what’s going on. One could pick a far-right Twitter account out of a hat and one of these characters would match up to the levels of fear, hatred, and insecurity the anonymous Pepe’s exhibit. Ray Velcoro is obsessed with the idea that he’s been “cucked” by a rapist and that his son may not be his own flesh and blood. That regrettable word doesn’t appear in the show but Ray is a perfect avatar for every deluded soul who thinks racial purity will somehow bring glory to a nation that was never “great.” After his marriage fell apart Ray’s method of dealing with his problems involves rock n roll, whiskey, cocaine, pull ups, beer, and tears – in that order. Though Ray projects a rugged demeanor his unrepentant self is not much different from the pasty would-be assassin (a dead ringer for those “nerd with a katana” image macros) who mumbles “I am the blade and the bullet” before attempting to kill the city’s corrupt police chief. This is all the more funny (or sad) considering the basement dwelling keyboard warriors rubbing digital shoulders with adherents to the “#HarambeMindset.”

An obsession about authenticity and masculinity plagues both Velcoro and Woodrugh. Ray’s father was the image of a tough guy cop who probably very liberal giving out wood shampoos or worse in the days when police could get away with anything. Woodrugh has Clint Eastwood as a father figure, and his assumed taciturn sulking does him no favors either. Sometimes it’s just absurd the things that bother them. Both men comment on different occasions about disliking their fellow detective Ani Bezzerides’ e-cigarette. Adopting an affectation of “manliness” or caring overmuch about your method of nicotine delivery does not make you a more virtuous person and just seems like wasted effort. Yet “authentic masculinity” is one of the fixations of the far-right that is constantly rearing its wimpy balding head.

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To the powerful, immigration is an ideology

Check out my piece published at The Daily Caller:

Elites will trip over each other promoting every just about every other solution without much fuss from the media: Installing a government backdoor into every consumer device, banning guns, expanding military operations overseas, increase the depth and breadth of the surveillance state and putting soldiers equipped with body armor and automatic rifles everywhere you can expect a large crowd.

We’re expected to accept anything as necessary, whether it be living under the constant threat of terrorism or living in an Orwellian police state, if it means the continual importation of a third-world underclass. In fact, all responsible authorities tell us that the real problem but the fact that Islamic terrorism fuels anti-immigration sentiment, rather than the fact that the population is forced to live in fear, or, for the unlucky ones, were robbed of their lives.

This might seem weird in a vacuum, but it should always be remembered that elites have their legitimacy buttressed by their apparent commitment to diversity and inclusion. But for anyone who is paying attention, asking this much from the electorate is a bridge too far. The belief that racism is the insurmountable evil that warrants the suppression of all other goods might be nearing its expiration date, and the foundations of the power will shift accordingly.

That isn’t to say that racism isn’t evil, but a smarter way of looking at it might be that it’s instrumentally evil rather than evil per se. Could anyone be so bold to take this position in polite society, to say that racism is only bad because it hurts people? The U.S. Department of State already has.

Pokémon No

It’s time to ban Pokémon Go.

The ridiculously popular smartphone app is taking off across America. With already more users than the boinking-made-easy app Tinder, Pokémon Go has gone “viral,” in the non-STD kind of way.

The app, which is an off-shoot of the Nintendo franchise that pits cute creatures against each other in non-lethal bloodsport, turns smartphone-owners into real-life hunters. The mechanics are clever: The game buzzes your phone when a Pokémon is near, and imputes a graphic of the beast on the environment using the phone’s camera. The goal is to catch the bugger by swiping your finger across the screen. Collect enough of these colorful monsters and you become king of the nerds, or something.

The game’s seamless blend of technological fantasy and reality is wickedly simple—and extremely addicting. Pokémon Go is so simple that it’s beginning to infiltrate all manner of public places. Players complain the game is making them late for work. Thugs are robbing unwitting competitors glued to their screen. American soldiers are “catching them all” on the frontline. The Holocaust Museum had to chastise attendees for playing the game in a place of mourning. Ditto for Arlington National Cemetery.

At a local coffee shop, I recently had to experience the maddening frustration of two patrons taking forever to order because they had to catch a “Bulbasaur.” After unsuccessfully snagging the thing, they finally got on with their order, aloof to what happened. They were oblivious of the fact they held everyone up to play a video game. In public. As fully-grown adults.

Can you say, “pika pika, screw you”?

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