The only third party candidate who is within shouting distance of being able to make it on the debate stage with Hillary and Trump is Gary Johnson. Maybe he will make it, and maybe he will not, but whether he succeeds there or not, a lot of Christians are looking around for some decent place to land. Could Johnson be that place?
It would be easy to dismiss him because he belongs to the pro-abort wing of the libertarians, but that issue isn’t that simple. If Johnson were a genuine libertarian—he is not—it could be possible for a conservative Christian to vote for him as a tactical move. What do I mean?
What would I do if a candidate pulled “the reverse move” on the life issue? We are accustomed to the usual shtick. Hillary’s VP selection, Tim Kaine, has said (as countless others have said before him) that he is personally pro-life, but that as a matter of public policy he wants to keep things as bloody as they currently are.
What would happen if a pro-choice Libertarian reversed this? Suppose someone said that they were personally pro-choice, but that, if elected, they would cut Planned Parenthood off without one thin dime, would appoint strict constitutionalists to the bench, and nothing but strict constitutionalists, and that his understanding of the Constitution was that states should have the full and untrammeled right to restrict abortions if they so choose. He would go live in another state.
That could be a consistent position for a Libertarian to take. The reason I don’t think a vote for Johnson along such lines would work is that he plainly does not understand how libertarianism works. And even if we had a consistently libertarian pro-choicer running, I am well past the point of wanting to triangulate my vote—I am not a good enough pool player to sink an eight-bump bank shot. I want a candidate who loves Jesus, and acts like it.
There is much to admire in principled libertarianism, particularly in the forms represented by Judge Napolitano or Rand Paul. But its perennial danger, and the one to which it has now succumbed, is the danger of turning libertarianism into libertinism, where the principles of economic liberty and free association go up in a haze of pot smoke. The current Libertarian ticket of Johnson/Weld is a statist joke. Johnson wants the state to have authority over conscience in the market place, religious liberty be damned, supports continued funding for Planned Parenthood, and Weld endorsed Obama and supported an assault weapons ban. In short, were Johnson and Weld to make their way to positions of authority, we would only find out what impact THC might have on policy prescriptions. I am not a libertarian, but I am more of one than the current Libertarian ticket.
We have had RINOs for years, and so it is only fitting that we now make room for LINOs—Libertarian in Name Only. That being the case, a tactical vote for the Libertarians—which is not a good idea anyway—would simply affect what side of the slippery slope we continue to careen down.
StepsToPoliticalEpiphany.com
http://66.media.tumblr.com/79eff334731c4301e441e54148359cce/tumblr_oc6b9bv5Un1v9nihzo1_1280.jpg
HIDE YOUR KIDS! HIDE YOUR WIFE!
Mind you, his campaign spent $30,000 for memes like this.
At least he’s better than McMullin in that we might could all smoke pot to forget that he became president ¯_(ツ)_/¯
It gets worse.
In the same vein as:
“Feel the Bern”,
Gary appears to have a
T-shirt that says:
“Feel the Johnson”.
Let’s hope he is appealing to the sense of humor demographic .
Let’s not speculate beyond that.????
I wasn’t joking about the “HIDE YOUR KIDS! HIDE YOUR WIFE!”
He creeps me out.
You don’t need to come and confess, we’re gonna find you!
I love that song.
“But its perennial danger, and the one to which it has now succumbed, is the danger of turning libertarianism into libertinism,..”
This is not a statement based on empiricism, as social conservatives such as Andrew Napolitano and Ron Paul comprise a large portion of the libertarian population. Libertinism has absolutely nothing to do with libertarianism. The fact that the two words sound similar, or that some libertines call themselves libertarians, doesn’t change that. There is no greater risk among true libertarians (those who subscribe to the non-aggression principle) of succumbing to libertinism than in the general population.
Who the party nominates to bear their standard is at least one empirical point.
If your statement had been about the Libertarian Party then I would have agreed. But you were talking about libertarianism in general. It is in no danger of that, as those who would enthusiastically support Johnson and the Libertarian Party only because they like abortions, weed, and other sinful things are not true libertarians.
I agree with Ben’s caution here. National parties tend to attract all sorts of opportunistic folks (both candidates and electorate) who don’t have a clear handle on the defining principles. For example, we can clearly see that the GOP has lost its grip on what distinguishes conservatism from socialism, etc. This doesn’t mean that we are then free to argue that “principled conservatism” is a failure. This same error is committed by those who conclude that the cronyism, too-big-to-fail bailouts, fiat currency counterfeiting, interest rate manipulation, and the outright socialism of our current regime represent a failure of “principled free… Read more »
This is hard to unravel. Groups give themselves libertarian credence for positions that they intrinsically favour. If you think something is acceptable behaviour you view legal opposition to this behaviour as statist; but if you think something is unacceptable behaviour then you view legal opposition to such to be reasonable. How do we distinguish true libertarian desires? I think there are 2 questions to ask. How much money do you allow the citizens to keep? Do you permit people to use their own money foolishly? Even though you can think of many ways you would spend their money for their… Read more »
I have never met an authentic libertarian. They may well exist somewhere, but I’ve simply come to the conclusion that libertarianism as an ideology is unrealistic because it fails to take human behavior into account. I’ve either met libertarians who have no liberty in their totalitarianism or else they they are so open minded about liberty everything in the whole world should be legalized.
Libertarianism is kind of a homo deal.
I’m moderately libertarian. I would remove government involvement in most things including superannuation, schooling, health. Restrict the state to justice and defence.
I even think people should be able to do what they wish with their animals despite opposing what people do.
Probably the least libertarian component of me is the drug issue; I haven’t made up my mind on that.
I may well be an anarchist. :) Definitely shrink the government and reduce the power of the State over individuals. As to the drug issue, I too am not certain. Marijuana is now a booming business in my state and right behind it, although still underground is meth and heroin. I hate it all, it destroys lives, and yet so much of it is driven by economics. There are no jobs, it’s becoming much harder to provide for yourself. I know legalized marijuana was like an economic windfall here. We still have laws against other drugs, but that doesn’t stop… Read more »
But here’s the thing. Apart from the Party, it doesn’t matter. You want to speak of Libertarian philosophy? Have at it. Apart from the Libertarian Party, you might as well speak of Stoicism, in terms of its actual impact. If there are not enough “true libertarians” to nominate a “true libertarian” in the Libertarian Party, then “true libertarianism” is irrelevant.
Unfortunately, the same argument is being used to note that there aren’t enough “true conservatives” to nominate a “true conservative” to the GOP. The conclusion of some is that it is conservatism itself that is a failure, and irrelevant (or even the very problem itself), whereas I would want to point out that we haven’t seen conservatism in a long time, and we might want to give it a try.
It becomes increasingly unclear what sort of unicorn conservativism might be, by your telling. Typically the term in the American political context describes the movement started by people such as Russell Kirk and William Buckley. What do you mean by it?
Australia has a party of libertines that, among other things, demand the force of the state be used to override freedom of conscience, and they call themselves civil libertarians.
Libertarianism: Originally, the concept used by the founders of the country, but currently what happens when Deadheads major in Political Science.
Dude!????
Libertarianism: Originally, the concept used by the founders of the country
ROTFLMAO
You seem to like those abbreviations so I found you some new ones on a seniors’ site.
FWIW: Forgot Where I Was
BTW: Bring The Wheelchair
ROFL… CGU: Rolling On The Floor Laughing… And Can’t Get Up
DWI: Driving While Incontinent
IMHO: Is My Hearing-Aid On
IMHMO: In My HMO…
RULKM: Are You Leaving Kids Money?
BYOT: Bring Your Own Teeth
TTYL: Talk To You Louder
LMDO: Laughing My Dentures Out
BLOCKED
I may be 66, but I’m not old!
No indeed. And you are only a couple of months older than I am. Otherwise I would never have dared take such a liberty.
Libertarianism as described by Rothbard etc. genuinely does seem like the ideology of the American revolutionaries. What differences do you see?
A whole lot of them. For starters:
Official state churches
Laws against doing business on Sunday
Laws against homosexuality, with many of them carrying the death penalty
Laws against interracial marriage (I think some of these carried the death penalty)
Free blacks were heavily discriminated against by the governments of most states, being barred from such activities as voting, sitting on juries, testifying against white people, living in some states, even being barred from just traveling through some states without posting a bond of what often amounted to several years’ income, etc, etc.
Slavery
Arguably these were all carryovers from their past — I mean, the British and the loyalists didn’t oppose those things. I think it’s valid to argue that those things were not compatible with the ideas espoused in the Declaration of Independence, and that the American revolutionaries just weren’t completely consistent.
(As I’m sure you’re aware, I don’t have much sympathy for either libertarians or the American revolutionaries.)
The Founders were libertarian at the national level, but not at the state level. They viewed the federal government as something that should be excessively limited with it powers specifically proscribed, while the states had much more authority and power, which is why states had official religions, sundry laws, etc
Gary Johnson will never be President.
Neither will Trump.
As a reply to ashv comment, what does that mean?
It breaks my heart that they call themselves libertarian
Doug – Does that mean your vote has safely rested on Darrell Castle? For us Cruzers, he seems the last legitimate pick in this election.
Off topic, but the University of Chicago has notified its incoming freshmen that the university does not provide trigger warnings or intellectual safe spaces. Isn’t that great?
Couldn’t that warning itself be considered a trigger warning?
Yes. I hope it triggers Specially Sensitive Special Snowflakes to a realization that they will not be happy at the U of C!
Speaking of triggers, does anyone remember that pitch perfect Joan Baez parody back in the early 70s encouraging blacks to riot, burn, and kill? National Lampoon put it out. It could be the theme song for next year’s Desiring God conference. I won’t link to it. If you want to hear it for yourself, do a Google search for “pull the tregroes”
Pull those triggers niggers we’re with you all the way… just across the bay.
What possibly possessed you to think that was an appropriate thing to write here or edifying to anyone in any way?
I was just quoting the song 40 was talking about.
An openly racist poster alludes to a song that even he isn’t willing to quote, but you thought it was a good idea to quote the most racist phrase in the song just because 40 acres mentioned the song first? It didn’t have the slightest thing whatsoever to do with the conversation at all – it was literally just a chance for him to try to sneak the n-word into the conversation.
Again, why does 40 acres mentioning a degrading song make you think it’s a good idea to quote the worst part of the sing?
Reading the punchline takes less time than listening to the song, if amyone was curious. I’m not saying it was a good idea.
FYI, it’s probably better to at least make people do the leg work of chasing down racist punchlines on their own. I don’t think disseminating them more widely contributes to the Body.
I mean, come on now, 40 Acres is so prejudiced that he insists Black people couldn’t have come from Adam like us, and even he wasn’t even willing to link the song, much less quote it. He must have giggled when you did his work for him.
He was/is a troll so I’m sure he giggled about most of the responses he got. The puchline used racist language but the joke was about white liberals encouraging blacks to riot. It’s not more racist than Ramdy Newmans ‘Rednecks’
Here is an interesting take on how libertarian is Johnson compared to Castle?
A proposal for Christian libertarianism. While the responsibility of self-government points toward liberty, the fallen nature of man points away from excessive state control. There can be little doubt that while good leaders have done good for their people, evil leaders have done much damage. Open wickedness may be obviously wrong, but excessive control is frequently harmful. Further, if we allow for a large state when we approve of our leaders, the same state can do proportionally more damage when bad men come into power. Further, even if leaders don’t seem overtly evil, our fallen nature affects our reason. So… Read more »
Interesting. Edward Snowden once called himself a Christian libertarian, and judging from his decisions, he does seem to subscribe to the idea that “restricting leaders seems more essential than restricting citizens.”
I have used the term Christian libertarian for myself. Is Snowden a Christian?
Yes, Snowden has called himself a Christian and a libertarian and even a “Christan libertarian.” I’m not sure how accurate that is, how prominently it features in his life, I just found it interesting.
National Review said New Mexico’s government grew faster under Gov Johnson than the US government under President Obama.
The Constitution Party agreed with me 95% according to some online website that assesses one’s agreement with various candidates and platforms. (Trump 85%, surprisingly high).
Talk about how clownish Trump is all you want, but Hillary is the one who recently opened a pickle jar on TV to illustrate her fitness for the office and gave a speech today addressing people who make nazi frog memes and talk about their love for chicken tendies.
Really? I missed the pickle jar thing. LOL
https://youtu.be/Kt22Y9-dfNk?t=69
I don’t know whether we should categorise abortion under a libertarian banner.
Clearly the pro and anti groups differ based on whether or not they see abortion as murder. So one could say that the question is non-discriminatory for libertarianism. Currently many argue that being pro-abortion (legal) is libertarian and anti-abortion (legal) is non-libertarian (or statist). Which is nonsense.
If abortion is in fact murder (which it is) then anti-abortion is the libertarian position. If a person is otherwise clearly libertarian I think the abortion question (while extremely important) may not help discriminate.
I would suggest you forget about the national elections. Concentrate first on your local and state elections. You have three good candidates running in your district. Dan Foreman and Carl Berglund are republicans. Kenneth De Vries is a former Republican who is running as an independent. Vote your conscience. All are pro life. All are strong on the Constitution. All are pro 2A. Whether you are a [l]ibertarian, a [L]ibertarian a [r]epublican or a [R]epublican (if you don’t know the difference, you are part of the problem), continuing to elect RINOs, LINOs or liberals of any party is only going… Read more »
Principled Rand Paul? For such a deep thinker as you are try again. Pro abort libertarian ism back to the states is not the answer anyway. States shouldn’t have the right to allow murder. Was it principal for Paul to endorse Mitch McConell or was it watching out for his backside?
Well, I’ll be darned.
So this is why we haven’t heard from Barnabas in a couple days.
He’s been on the road.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k61I1srYHW0
since you found it just find to vote for Romney, I would suggest you save yourself further John Roberts style mental gymnastics and simply hold your nose and vote for Trump. You could then move on and focus on pastoral issues that actually provide benefit to fellow Christians.