by Alex Fidel

Gary Johnson Q&A w/ The Objective Standard:

Johnson: We don’t live in a democracy, we live in a republic. We live in a country that’s governed by laws. If we lived in a democracy, we could all vote ourselves a raise, and we wouldn’t be able to afford that, and that’s been the demise of democracies. We live in a republic, and if we lose sight of that, we do so at the expense of individual freedom and liberty.

by Alex Fidel

“I’m Gary Johnson-entrepreneur, athlete, former 2 term gov. Of NM, veto king” – Gary Johnson on Twitter responding to the Tampa, FL debate hosted by CNN/The Tea Party. The only kind of king that results in liberty.

by Alex Fidel

Get a first peek at the interview I did with Gov. Gary Johnson that I did for a GJ Grassroots Podcast I hosted that has yet to be released by the campaign, on my radio show-turned-podcast Freethought. Click here to download the podcast. This would be the third time Gov. Johnson has appeared on my program, the first time talking to him since he announced his presidential bid.

Via Gary Johnson Grassroots Forums:

by Alex Fidel

Click here to download the new episode of my radio show-turned-podcast, Freethought. Guests are John Stahl, candidate for U.S. Congress (R, CA-50) and DuelingBarstools.com publician-in-chief Ryan Nohea Garcia. Plenty of good music, too. Your feedback is greatly appreciated!

by Alex Fidel

Honest- adj., free of deceit and untruthfulness; sincere. See also Gary Johnson:

Catchy campaign slogan, eh? (Photo credit: Nick Fidel)

by Alex Fidel

Gary Johnson placed 3rd in the CPAC 2011 straw poll. That may seem like the short end of the stick, but think of the little recognition Johnson got, and how little in advance he scored the speaking position. This just goes to show that people are ready for bold spending cuts, which Gary made sure to mention amounted to $1.5 TRILLION; a balanced budget tomorrow.

I’m glad Ron Paul won, I’d obviously support with full effort a Ron Paul 2012 campaign. But I have to think in real terms. I know it’s hard to say this, I’m just as big of a Ron Paul fan as all of you are, but Ron Paul is not immortal. He’s going to be around 77 in 2012, and has to lead for 8 years. I’m sure he’d rather live stress free with his family rather than the tremendous job of president. Gary Johnson is younger, an extremely fit athlete, and has held a similar position on the state level as governor of New Mexico. That’s just my 2 cents on why I think Ron Paul should not run for president again, even though I’d support him 110% if he did. Now, I’d love to see him really do a lot of significant spreading of the “brushfires of liberty” in the minds of men. R3VOLution of the mind is where it’s at. And even though Gov. Johnson isn’t as philosophical as Ron Paul, you know that he’d go further than just a balanced budget. He’s said time and time again that he supports ending the Fed, and it’s not like he’s 100% cost/benefit. In one of his State of the State speeches, he said “Man is superior to government, not the other way around.” Definitely a consistent belief in the philosophy of liberty, just he also prefers to take it from a business standpoint. It’s easier to sell vetoes to the public when it’s in terms of cost/benefit rather than just pure philosophical. That’ll beget the idea that government can do better with much less, which will lead to an increase in limited government philosophy throughout the nation. Gov. Johnson did shift public opinion on school choice in NM significantly.

If the 3rd place is an indication of anything, it is to not underestimate Gary Johnson one bit. He could’ve been down in the percentage ranks with Donald Trump for saying “legalize marijuana” at a conservative conference. Think about it… Johnson ‘12.

Starts off with his resume and gets right into discussing his common sense, business approach to Constitutionally limited, fiscally accountable government. Then, he explains the evidence and logic he bases his policy positions on. This is probably the best, and certainly the most passionate, speech I’ve ever seen Gary Johnson make.

Watch the video and weep. At least the social conservatives and moral crusaders admit, more or less, that they carry on – no zealously prosecute – the war on drugs in spite of it’s disastrous (and at this point seemingly intended) consequences. They believe drugs are really really bad (as opposed to alcohol, which they don’t regard (anymore) as really really bad) and that the natural, civil rights once secured to Americans by the Constitution, and for which millions of Americans have perished in battles near and far, do not include the right to voluntarily produce, distribute, or consume, such substances as marijuana, notwithstanding that a long, noteworthy list of American heroes, including such notable figures as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln, endorsed, produced, and consumed marijuana because they found it useful and beneficial.

Republicans, thy name is hypocrisy. When you figure that out and begin consistently applying your own purported philosophy to your current partisan and ideological beliefs you’ll catch up to what Gary Johnson has been saying all along.

By contrast, Hillary Clinton’s basis for opposing the war on drugs is based on sheer, utter ignorance, or political self-interest (see below). She thinks America can’t end the war on drugs because there’s “too much money in it.” As if the deleterious consequences of the war on drugs, most notably among them the Fallujah-like levels of violence throughout the Americas (and most prominently on the US-Mexico border), result from anything other than federal prohibition of the production and distribution of once legal substances for which there is great (and logical) demand coupled with an unnerving willingness by the United States to prosecute, with paramilitary and at times actual military forces, a prohibition offensive tantamount to an actual war.

The time-honored cycle of government produced state-on-citizen warfare is as follows. Government marginalizes and prohibits the production and sale of once-legal products, then hangs warrants on the necks of businesspeople who yet supply them, making them pirates. Violence ensues as pirates work to preserve their liberty. Since prison (or worse) is already assured, pirates have great incentive to arm themselves and combat the state, which requires money. Fortunately for them, there is a great deal of money to earn in the black market government prohibition created. Like all wars, there’s much money to be made on both sides.

(Note: The Somalians, and others, attacking ships off of the Horn of Africa are hyenas, not pirates. Pirates are businesspeople whose trade has been marginalized or prohibited by the State, almost always to benefit controlling political interests. Hyenas scavenge by force.)

The war on drugs is basically about shooting the messenger. Hillary, if you really believe there’s “too much money” in drugs then attack the source. Retroactively imprison every person whom the government learns has consumed drugs, or at least poison their records with misdemeanor drug possession charges. Start at the top, with President Obama, toss in former Presidents Bush and Clinton, and work down from there.

Or did Hillary refer to the “money” involved in the prosecution of the war on drugs? There’s certainly a lot of money there. Like they say, follow the money. You’ll find who really supports the war on drugs. The war on drugs is a prime example of a bi-partisan consensus amongst the political class to utilize the immutable force of government to benefit controlling interests. Social conservative controlling interests support the war on drugs as a means to achieve what they believe is a moral society. Political interests, among them prisons, courts, police, homeland “security,” DEA, immigration, border control, paramilitary, and the private and public social and business interests that support them, throw their weight behind candidates who promise to continue if not ramp up the war on drugs. Witness the 2009 Democrat Congress expanding Bush’s disastrous Merida Initiative. Yeah, there’s too much money in it all right.

Hillary statement indicates she’s either economically illiterate, dishonest, or brutally honest. Reason’s below video was gracious enough to excuse her seemingly ignorant statement due to jetlag. Personally I think Hillary was being honest. Translation: “We can’t end the war on drugs, it’s a fucking goldmine for a multitude of domestic and foreign political interests that you have only scratched the surface of. Don’t you know how this game works?”

The host of the Gary Johnson interview I linked to earlier today asked an interesting question (@4:28): “As President Johnson, how are you going to know who’s ass to kick?”

Johnson initially declined to answer the hypothetical. He’s not inclined to bullshit, and though the question was funny and seemingly important, it wasn’t well thought out. The answer is obvious and common to us all. Gary Johnson will know who’s ass to kick the same way he’s ever known who’s ass to kick. The better question is what knowledge, experience, and skill does Gary Johnson possess that enables him to “know who’s ass to kick?” That’s what we want to know about him.

To be fair, most politicians would love the interviewer’s first question. It’s the ultimate softball. Pick the hypothetical straw man argument of your choice and burn it down from the ultimate bully pulpit – the hypothetical presidency. (If only I could get off this barstool and into the Oval Office, asses I would be kicking! Kicking I say!)

In other words, it’s the perfect question for mental masturbators, such as most politicians, pundits, and some drinkers. A lot of people would begin by reciting their occupation and laurels, which suggests, but is not conclusive, that they possess whatever minimum level of competency their listener subjectively expects of such a person. That’s not a great answer, though, because we all know there’s a lot of highly educated dummies and shitty lawyers.

But the interviewer pressed Gary Johnson, good-naturedly, and rephrased his question: “As commander in chief, how would you know who’s ass to kick?”

That’s the right question. Johnson replied (and you should watch it to hear his tone):

“Well, it gets back to resume. What have any of us done with our lives? I’ve been fortunate to have employed a lot of people in my life. I’ve been fortunate enough to have a good sense of hiring good people, and good sense to determine which people aren’t doing their jobs, and perhaps for whatever reason someone else needs to be doing that job.”

That’s the plain speak of self-made entrepreneurs. Gary Johnson’s answer was basically that he knows how to identify talent and when to fire it, which is the extent of the personal ass kicking Presidents should perform. Though he said he’s been “fortunate” to have good sense about people, the truth is that he built a 1,000 employee construction and mechanical services company from the ground up. Never forget, Gary Johnson is from the private sector, where they expect results. He has the qualities common to successful entrepreneurs and executives. Among them, critical thinking ability, a knack for talent, a penchant for efficient risk taking, and above all common sense.

It shouldn’t surprise you, then, that Gary Johnson advocates for a common sense, business approach to Constitutionally limited, fiscally accountable government, and can point to his record as governor of New Mexico to prove it. His political compass points to individual freedom, and he doesn’t shy from what he believes for fear criticism. In fact, he’ll gladly accept an invitation to address a known hostile crowd, such as he did here, where a portion of a major Tea Party rally had obviously not yet applied Johnson’s message of limited government and freedom, for which they had previously cheered, to their partisan or ideological beliefs about drugs, and thus booed when he said legalize marijuana and end the war on drugs, Gadsden flags surrounding them.

Do your politicians do that? The OUR America Initiative is driving the GaryJohnson 2012 WAR wagon and DuelingBarstools is riding shotgun. Please donate to the Initiative so Gary’s wagon can afford fresh ponies.

“People aren’t making their own bathtub gin because they can buy Tanqueray.” – Gary Johnson.

Regarding the ‘freedom movement’ that’s been picking up steam in the USA, “It’s what this country’s always been about, liberty, freedom, and the personal responsibility that goes along with that.” – Gary Johnson

My apologies (even if you’re not sorry) for the lack of original content at DuelingBarstools. I’ve been slogged of late. Also, my previous post about Nanny-Brit Jamie Oliver seems to have put my lexicon of British jargon at the front of me brain. Speaking of, I love Brits. I lived with dozens of them for various lengths of time whilst in Fiji in 2007 and 2008. Whenever I meet Brits the back of my brain plays a game with itself (if you can’t play with yourself, you can’t play with others – know what I mean?) that wonders what role he or she, based upon his/her respective personality) would have played in the Empire circa 1840. It’s fun. Anyway, here’s some good reading for the weekend (or even this fine Friday evening, if you’re home like me, unfortunately for us):

Some guy I’ve never heard of and whose political compass I’m not sure points towards freedom as I demand of “conservatives” is the new chairman of the GOP. The Republican Liberty Caucus didn’t seem too impressed with him on Facebook today, so while the jury’s still out, meet the new boss. Probably same as the old boss. Unfortunately. Sheesh that was pessimistic.

Comprehensive list of tax increases as a result of Obamacare. Speaking of, the newest meme seems to be that anyone who calls it Obamacare is a moron because it’s not really what Obama wanted but rather is merely insurance reform, so don’t blame it on Obama. I picked up that scent trail on various blogs’ comments, articles, etc. See, e.g., here (a soon to be defunct MMA website – probably the most unlikely of places).

Maine Governor tells NAACP to kiss his ass. To prove we’re not in a post-racial society, the (white) governor made sure to remind all listening that his son “happens to be black” – so don’t hate. Hmmm… “Happens to be.” For the record, I don’t happen to be anything. Happen has nothing to do with it, fool. For instance, I’m definitely Spanish (Punta de Tarifa – Gibraltar, essentially), Hawaiian (Kanaka’oluna ‘ohana, represent!), Portuguese (Madeira / Azores), Scottish (Tulloch, purportedly – there’s good reason to believe he wasn’t actually my great great grandfather), Irish (Abbott, from Cork), English (somewhere gray, no doubt), Norwegian (no clue), Dutch (no clue – but I trust my ancestor(s) tired of plugging the dikes and g(ot)tfo), French-German (Alsace-Lorraine – I know, right, choose your side motherfucker!) and Jewish (from my Mom’s side, so it counts right?). But the only thing that really matters is that I won the global lottery by being born in America (and Hawai’i at that! FBI!). Do I “happen to be” all of that? No. It is what it is. Perhaps it’s semantics. But I’d prefer, Governor, that if you’re going to preemptively use the “I can’t be racist because I adopted a black son” defense, that you’d just say “my son is black.” What’s wrong with that? Nothing. The trouble is that you (probably correctly) feel the need to say so, to CYA with regard to the NAACP. But what do I know, the only American of largely African ancestry I’ve ever pwned pissed off is the managing editor of The Root.

77% of Americans want government to cut spending. The other 23% believe they live in the part of Imaginationland where money (apparently) grows on trees and doesn’t deflate the value of currency.

U.S. Breaks Housing Price Decline Record Set During Great Depression. Beer me.

Finally, GARY JOHNSON is the man. Once again, with feeling: Gary Johnson’s political compass points straight to more individual freedom, now. And he has a proven track record of successfully implementing a Common Sense, Business Approach to Constitutionally Limited, Fiscally Accountable Government.

Nick Gillespie’s title to the following excerpted article says it all: Memo to Speaker Boehner: If You Won a Congessional Majority Because You Pledged to Cut Spending and You Can’t Think of a Single Program to Cut Now, Please Go Home

From an interview with NBC’s Brian Williams:

WILLIAMS: Name a program right now that we could do without.

BOEHNER: I don’t think I have one off the top of my head.

Emphasis Added.

Someone get Gary Johnson on the phone with Speaker Boehner – immediately. Gary knows what federal programs to eliminate, and why. It’d be a short phone call that might go something like this:

Hi Speaker Boehner, how are you? I understand you’re calling with regard to your interview where you couldn’t think of any unnecessary federal programs. [Crickets... on Boehner's line].

Cut the DOE, HUD, FCC, and end the war on marijuana. There’s a few hundred billion alone. If you count the pernicious market distortions caused by federal subsidies in education and housing, which you should – and by the way, you should end agricultural subsidies too – you’ll be into trillions of dollars of savings.

Have a nice day.

Gary Johnson is probably too gracious to remind Boehner that a talking point on what to cut would be a good idea, and not just because the promise of decreasing the size and scope of government persuaded Americans to hand the federal pocketbook back to Republicans. It’s also a good idea because it might limit the extent to which Boehner et al. expose themselves as a RINOs come lately to the common sense, business approach to Constitutionally limited, fiscally accountable government bandwagon that Gary Johnson’s been driving since the early nineties.

Excellent interview / article with Gary Johnson here. Excerpts below:

Government spending must be halted, even in politically hazardous areas such as defense and Social Security, or it will destroy the country and the American way of life, former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson tells Newsmax.TV. The possible presidential candidate also advocates a system of work visas to deal with the illegal immigration problem.

“I think that the biggest threat to national security is the fact that we spend more money than what we take in,” said Johnson, a Republican who was New Mexico’s governor for two terms.

“I think the biggest threat to our way of life is the fact that we have spent more money than we can afford, putting us in a state of bankruptcy, and unless we address this situation now, I think that we’re going to be left with no country at all,” he said during the exclusive interview.

Republican Gary Johnson says legalizing marijuana would reduce deadly border violence by 75 percent. He advocates swift approval of legal work visas. Johnson also proposes immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq and Afghanistan. Both the states and the federal government ended up in dire financial straits the same way — through “political promises that were made that should have never been made,” said Johnson, who tagged Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and defense as the “big four” government promises.

To deal with Medicaid and Medicare, he advocated a system of block grants that would leave “the delivery of healthcare to the poor and those over 65 to the states.”

Although Social Security needs to be reformed, he said it is not nearly the problem Medicare is. Nonetheless, he said the retirement age needs to be raised and benefits should be reduced.

“With regard to defense, I don’t think we can continue to spend more money than all the other countries in the world combined when we’re only 5 percent of the world’s population,” he said. “This is a new world reality that is going to require the United States to stop being the world’s sheriff. We can’t continue to nation build when we have our own nation to build.”

Noting that the United States now borrows 43 cents of every dollar spent, he advocated withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan.

“We should be out of Iraq and Afghanistan tomorrow,” he said. “I think that the issues that we will face by getting out of those two countries will be the same tomorrow as they would be 25 years from now.”

To me that’s the strongest reason to get out now. I watched Hannity last night, George W. Bush was on making the case for why it’s important to stay in Afghanistan etc. He’s right in many ways, but Johnson’s right too in that the shit we’re there now trying to stop is going to hit the proverbial fan when we leave, whether that’s now or later. So GTFO now.

A year ago, Johnson started Our America Initiative, which he described as a political advocacy group that would put a voice to the national outrage over the deficit spending and to look at solutions. He said he also is trying to broaden the Republican base so Americans might give the GOP another chance at governing.

“I don’t know why citizens might do that, though, given the fact that, in the mid-’90s, they gave Republicans that chance. And I think Republicans blew it by passing a prescription healthcare benefit and running up record deficits when they controlled both houses of Congress and the presidency.”

On the subject of illegal immigration, Johnson advocates a system that would make it as easy as possible to get a work visa but cautioned that it would not be a green card or citizenship. It would entail a background check and require paying applicable taxes.

“With regard to the 11 million illegal immigrants that are in this country right now I would set up a grace period by which they can get a legal work visa, again not a green card, not citizenship, but a legal work visa,” he said. “And then once you’ve set this up, once you allow that grace period to pass, then make it a one strike you’re out: If you’re in this country illegally you’re going to be arrested, you’re going to be deported, and you’re not going to come back.”

Johnson, a former businessman and avid outdoorsman who has been mentioned as a possible presidential candidate, refused to give a yes or no when asked whether he will run. The legal status of the Our America Initiative “does not allow me to comment about running for political office,” he said.

On other issues, Johnson said:

• The tax system is unfair and doesn’t promote growth, innovation, or entrepreneurship.
• The corporate income tax should be eliminated.
• The “devil is always in the details” when it comes to a flat tax, which could turn into a tax increase.
• If marijuana were legalized, border violence would be reduced 75 percent.
• He supports a woman’s right to choose abortion until the time of viability.
• He favors gay civil unions.
• Obamacare should be repealed, along with prescription healthcare benefit passed when Republicans controlled Congress and the White House.

A while ago I started following @HeyTammyBruce on Twitter. I found a few of her tweets funny, and in general found her political views interesting. From what I could tell she seems to support equal treatment for homosexuals, and I can’t recall her endorsing the war on drugs. Her views on Obamacare, Obama, liberals, democrats, progressives, spending, debt, and taxes, are consistently TeaGOP stances. She’s also a big fan of Sarah Palin. Many of her tweets are Sarah Palin retweets, addressed to Sarah Palin, or otherwise endorsing Sarah Palin.

DuelingBarstool’s readers know that I genuinely like and respect Sarah Palin. She’s tough as nails, and embodies many of the qualities that made America prosperous and great. I particularly appreciate that she’s an entrepreneur, both in business and politics. I believe she gets a raw deal from the legacy media and the left in general. I also think she’s unqualified to be President or serve in the Senate. I think she’s suited to the House of Representatives, and would do well there. She’s also a very effective advocate in her current station.

The primary reason I wouldn’t support Sarah Palin for President or Senate is that I’ve seen no evidence that she took the time for self-study or gave critical thought to foreign policy or Constitutional issues until she was McCain’s pick. So when I read what Palin thinks about foreign policy I take it about as seriously as I do when Obama says anything about topics that I don’t believe he seriously thought about until he was responsible for them, such as crafting military strategy. I’m confident Obama and Palin have capable advisors, and I may at times agree with their views. But on a number of issues I don’t think either of them arrived at their conclusions through self-study and critical analysis. Or that they’ve independently considered counter arguments to the partisan or ideological positions they espouse.

It’s true that no individual could be personally knowledgeable about everything a President is responsible for. Perhaps no one is qualified to be President. But HeyTammyBruce appears to endorse Sarah Palin for president. So I posed a question to her on Twitter in regard to whether she knew if Palin had given critical thought to foreign policy before being McCain’s vice presidential pick. Here’s the exchange.

Me:

do you have any evidence that Palin critically studied and formed cogent opinions re foreign policy before VP run?

HeyTammyBruce’s responses:

[Palin] commanded 49^th missile defense battalion of AK national guard, protects entire nation from ballistic missile attacks …

As Gov AK, Palin was briefed on highly classified military issues, homeland security, and counterterrorism …

Palin also commanded AK state defense force (ASDF), incorporated homeland security’s counterterrorism plans. …

That’s a tiny bit on the unique position of AK gov. A bit more involved, I’d say, a ‘community organizer’ from Chicago …

In other words, Palin was entrusted with our national security and foreign affairs before Obama decided to become golfer in chief.

I responded:

I didn’t vote Barry for prez for precisely that reason …

To which HeyTammyBruce responded:

Good for you. AK Govs are in particularly unique national security position. Palin had experience before VP pick and lots after as well.

Me:

Those roles and positions do not prove prior critical analysis or cogent logic anymore than [Barack Obama’s] job makes him now an expert.

Plus she quit being gov to … be popular? I wish she’d run for Congress, personally.

HeyTammyBruce:

“You have to learn things through Twitter and you question someone else’s capabilities? ROFL! Here’s another lesson: ur blocked.”

Me (post block, I think):

You offered weak circumstantial evidence and failed to answer my question. Now you resort to ad hominem attack. Poor showing.

That HeyTammyBruce sure has thin Palin-skin. To recap, my question was whether HeyTammyBruce has evidence of Sarah Palin seriously studying and analyzing foreign policy prior to being thrust to the national stage as McCain’s pick. Her answer is apparently yes, offering as evidence the fact that Palin was entrusted with several important national security responsibilities during her half term as governor of Alaska.

By HeyTammyBruce’s logic, I would be a ROFL-dolt for asking an Obama supporter on Twitter whether he/she has evidence of Obama devoting self-study and critical thought to any particular realm of presidential responsibility that to my knowledge he appears not to have committed any. Obviously Obama has critically studied and formed cogent opinions on every realm of presidential responsibility because he has been entrusted with them for nearly two years.

Got that? Put charitably (it is Christmas, after all), she gave me the right answer to a question I didn’t ask – ie: “Does Palin have any experience relevant to foreign policy?” The follow up question would be whether in consideration of being responsible for those roles if elected governor, did she devote time self-study and critical thought on those issues.

HeyTammyBruce: I asked you a serious question on an important topic regarding an a person you wholeheartedly support. If you’d asked me the same question about Gary Johnson, whom I endorse for president, I’d point you to a number of articles where he discusses in frank terms his personal political evolution, from supporting McGovern as a young man (“because of the [Vietnam] war”) to supporting the war in Afghanistan in 2001, but not the Iraq war in 2003, and what and why he’d do about it now if he were commander in chief. Moreover, his foreign policy views largely diverge from both major political parties. Gary Johnson swims against mainstream political thought, suggesting extensive self-study and analysis, as well as a strong sense of conviction in his conclusions.

(In case you’re counting characters, from “I’d point …” to “conclusions.” would be four tweets (481 characters with spaces). HeyTammyBruce took the time to send me seven tweets.)

I’d also tell HeyTammyBruce that I’ve heard Gary Johnson say in person that he makes a point to read the editorial pages of both the NYT and WSJ so he gets both sides. I’d relay the recent interview quoting Gary Johnson as saying that when his wife to be asked him what book she could read to understand his political worldview, he told her Atlas Shrugged. Because he believes in individual freedom. That’s where his political compass points. As a rule, the man’s political views are the result of self-study, critical analysis, vigorous debate, and open minded exposure to contrary points of view. Consider, for instance, his well-known stance against the war on drugs. Gary Johnson was writing persuasive essays on why America should end the disastrous war on drugs back when GWB was the owner of a baseball team. Whatever you think about Gary Johnson’s political worldview, you may rest assured he came to it after much study and critical analysis.

Unfortunately that quality is exceedingly rare amongst politicians. (Sidenote: I can tell you for sure and for certain that Col. Allen West has formed his opinions through self-study, critical analysis, vigorous debate, and open-minded exposure to contrary points of view, not to mention first hand experience in war and the management of war. As such, I respect his opinions, including where I disagree with him. Also, I’d like to be a fly on the wall every time he gives a piece of his mind to the Congressional Black Caucus.)

I simply asked whether HeyTammyBruce had evidence of Sarah Palin possessing that important quality. I thought she’d know, since she’s an outspoken Palin fan. It’s a simple question, and her failure to answer it speaks volumes.

by Alex Fidel

Found this video on C-SPAN of the New Mexico’s Governor debate from 1998. Should give all you Dueling Barstools readers a preview of what Johnson vs. Obama might look like.

by Alex Fidel

Willie Nelson has started a new political movement, called Teapot Parties, as celebstoner.com reports:

All 50 states have started Willie Nelson-inspired Teapot Parties since the singer called for a new political party that “leans a little to the left” after his marijuana arrest  in Texas on Nov. 26. “Tax it, regulate it and legalize it,” the singer says. “And stop the border wars over drugs.”

There’s also a poll on the page as well, with Gov. Gary Johnson as a contender for the “next top CelebStoner.” Vote in the poll!

Expanding anti-drug education in public schools to further assist the war on drugs, as Krauthammer suggested today on Fox, is increasing production of a product no one really buys, as reported increases in teen drug use evince. Nearly everyone tries drugs of some sort, and increasingly marijuana – which is at least a wash and in my view a net gain for society. Honest and real education about drugs is better than anti-drug campaigns and necessary to properly address what is in fact a health, not criminal, issue. Furthermore, government anti-drug campaigns fail the common sense, business approach to fiscally limited government analysis Gary Johnson advocates for, and I support. Moral crusaders championing failed, and expensive, anti-drug education are yet another reason to support a school choice system, which would permit more parents to choose to the type of drug education their children receive.

The Rise of Freedom Tower is magnificent. But in the days of the Doolittle Raid it would have never taken over a decade to rebuild on ground zero. Doolittle era Americans may not have had as much education, but they had a whole lot more horse sense.

Now, a Zinger from Gary Johnson on Internet Freedom:

“I would strongly suggest that if the market demands Internet services, speed and access, the market will provide them without any help from the government. And for those of us who believe in free speech, it defies all logic and history to believe that a government with its foot in the door will not inevitably end up attempting to regulate and referee content and speech, not to mention commerce… An Internet free of regulation and taxation has produced innovation and enhancements to quality of life almost unparalleled in human history. The only thing government can do to “help” is keep its hands and its taxes off this last bastion of freedom.”

by Alex Fidel

Download the full episode here.

We introduced our new segment, DuelingBarstools.com On-Air, as well as payed tribute to Leslie Nielsen, and played Frank Zappa’s Apostrophe (‘) album from front to back in honor of FZ’s would-be 70th birthday (Dweezil Zappa is playing Apostrophe from front to back in his current Zappa Plays Zappa tour).

DuelingBarstools.com On-Air will be a weekly segment appearing on the show, which airs every Tuesday at 8PM-10PM PST, only at www.ksunradio.com

We went on for an hour this episode, but we’re going to cut the time down to about 20 minutes going forward.

Add the Freethought Facebook page, too.

by Alex Fidel

Although this will probably never happen, I think John Dennis should be Gary Johnson’s VP choice if he wins the primary.

They are both entrepreneurs; they are both very down-to-earth and humble; they both get much support from independents and Democrats (I was phonebanking for John Dennis’ congressional bid, and one person said they supported him because Pelosi wasn’t left enough, that they voted for Cindy Sheehan in ‘08 and now Dennis in ‘10); they both got massive support from Ron Paul; they both were nationally recognized; they have a great understanding of the philosophy of liberty and are not zombies; and it would break the mold of the image of a typical Republican being a square with a stick up their butt (they have grey hair, but aren’t your typical ‘old geezers’).

How that would work practically against Obama beats me. It could suck away a lot of his disenfranchised constituency who want real anti-war and socially tolerant candidates, but the whole capitalism thing might hinder that effect. What ever the result, I think that they would be a good ticket because of their similarities, which hopefully amounts to less argumentation in the White House.

Please Note:

December 1 in Chicago, with Tucker Carlson: Learn more and register at http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=106752506062992 (additional registration fee required)

December 12 in Boston: “Boston Tea Party” at Faneuil Hall; Learn more at http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=169188543094531

December 15 in Phoenix: 9th Annual Bill of Rights Dinner; RSVP at http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=179505025397391

December 19 in Denver: Gary will speak at KushCon; see http://kushcon.com/index.html for details.

by Alex Fidel

Many presidents in our history have talked about balancing our budget and cutting spending, including even FDR in his first race against President Hoover.

But the walk never matched the talk. Continuously budgets rose, administration after administration. A few like Coolidge cut back a lot, but the trend is there. The talk remained the same, but once in office everyone flipped flopped to some degree, including Reagan. No modern president has ever cut spending in a serious way.

Will anyone ever mean what they say in this area? I say yes. And his name is Gary Johnson.
Will we get the ideal? Maybe, maybe not. There’s a lot to scale back, and government growth will drop. But when that will sum up to a balanced budget depends on the annual rate of decrease in spending. It depends how much Congress is willing to co-operate on scaling back. They’d have to scale back by at least 43% of the budget and sustain and expand upon those cuts annually.

by Alex Fidel

I’m a huge Gary Johnson fan. I’m the opposite when it comes to Alex Jones; I can’t stand the guy. Gary Johnson was on Alex Jones’ show recently, and basically made Gary Johnson read his looney conspiracy headlines, to make it seem as if Gary believed it. Alex would go on and on about conspiracy, and then asked Gary if he was outraged by things like body scanners or the Patriot Act. Gary would answer that he was outraged, but Jones’ rant makes it seem as if the two are interconnected.

Neither Gary Johnson nor Ron Paul believes in Jones’ ‘inside job’ insanity. They believe our militarism causes attacks inflicted upon us, and that they are unintended consequences. The whole basis of libertarianism and libertarian economics is that policies have unintended consequences. In my first post here, I went on a rant about the many holes in the logic of such looney conspiracy theorists:

I’m not a fan of Alex Jones, so it gets a little frustrating when the small handful of people that show up to liberty meetings rapidly turn it into the First Church of Alex Jones. I mean really, if the whole point of libertarianism is that our militarism creates the unintended consequences of terrorism, how can these ‘truthers’ be against our military industrial complex when they think the government ’staged’ 9/11? It doesn’t make any sense. Furthermore, if our government was able to stage the 9/11 attacks, why can’t they properly run Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security, Amtrak, USPS, or the DMV? They can’t do anything right; they couldn’t even do ‘Watergate’ right. There is no government conspiracy in 9/11. It was an unintended consequence of our miltary expansion. (If they were efficient enough to do all those things, why cut government? That is the big hole in their logic…) Speaking of inefficiency, the whole reason we ignored the intel we had on the hijackers is because we are so incompetent. Judge Napolitano recently did a thing on FreedomWatch where he exposed the 9/11 commissions’ attempt to cover up their incompetence prior to 9/11, not their involvement. Enough of my anti-conspiracy rant… I’m just tired of seeing infowars ‘inside job’ stuff everywhere. BUT I would never want them to shut up about it, in fact, they should speak louder, because we live in a marketplace of ideas, so as long as we speak non-violently, it’s all good.

‘Nuff said. Gary Johnson is a level-headed, rational thinker. Why reduce our military industrial complex and military presence if our government staged 9/11? Well, they didn’t stage 9/11, our military presence around the world fed the motivation for these religious wackos in the Middle East, and thus, we should remove our military from all these places.

But in spite of all this, I still support Alex Jones’ right to speak, in fact, I think he should speak louder. Even if I think it’s all insane. That’s the beauty of Americanism: the free marketplace of ideas; the good,  the bad, and the wacko.

From Gary Johnson. Repeal Obamacare, repeal Bush’s prescription health care benefit. He’d do it too.

Interesting article about Gary Johnson in TNR. Excerpt below:

Johnson seems to relish flouting the watch-your-step etiquette most politicians practice religiously. Richardson, for example, spoke politely—even graciously—of his predecessor. “Nobody should underestimate Gary Johnson,” he told me. When Johnson talks about Richardson, by contrast, he doesn’t hide his disdain: He hones in on the ethics allegations that have plagued the current governor and reels off a lengthy list of his other qualms. After Richardson became governor, Johnson recounts, “he was teaching a course at the university, and he invited me as the guest. So I came, and somebody said, ‘What’s the biggest difference between you and Richardson?’ And I said, ‘Well, I think the difference is that I put issues first and politics last. Richardson puts politics first and issues last.’ And, actually, that was the truth. Couldn’t have been more accurate. And he was sitting there, and I don’t think he really liked it.” …

As we drive off, Johnson breathes a sigh of relief, floating theories about the merciful cop. But the close call sends him into a lighthearted rant on the absurdity of federally mandated speed limits. “Look,” he says, “there are times and places where it would be perfectly safe to go one-forty, and there are others where it would be reckless to go fifty-five.” Within moments, he’s taking aim at stop signs and red lights. “I’m not opposed to the concept,” he allows. “But sometimes, you know, it’s 5:30 in the morning! There’s nobody on the road!” Johnson laughs, turns in his seat, and fixes me with a grin. “That’s the first sign you know you’re a libertarian,” he says. “You see the red light. You stop. You realize that there’s not a car in sight. And you put your foot on the gas.”

Gary Johnson is the man. Fact.

by Alex Fidel

http://dailycaller.com/2010/11/02/gary-johnson-for-president-in-2012-listen-for-an-announcement-in-february/

Get excited people, let’s make this happen! Not only is Gary principled, but he is also honest and has great character. You can read my previous article about Gary Johnson’s Seven Principles of Good Government to find out more about Gary Johnson, the person.

I propose a Nation Reform Plan.

Enter America if you seek individual freedom and understand its opportunities carry responsibilities, which you must bear. If you’re already here, but consistently mistake freedom for the exercise of authority (usually that of government) over others, leave now. There is one rule here. It is to live freely amongst our individual selves, whomever we may be.

Also, multiculturalists – please note: your lie is that assimilation chills diversity. In fact, individualism is complete diversity. Your worldview chills individuality by ascribing moral, social, or political, significance to many things other than each person’s rational faculty, and also discourages equal treatment. Assimilation is simply the result, unique to every community, of individuals living freely. You should get on board with that.

That’s my new issue – nation reform. My motto? Individualism – Now. Maybe I can have a rally in DC to reform America. The Rally to Nation Reform, Now. That’ll be a quick speech: “Do what you want and take care not to coerce others. Voluntary exchange only.” Quick question: where does your favorite politician stand on nation reform? My favorite politician’s nation reform plan is more individual freedom. I’m on board.

Since you’re still reading, here’s Gov. Gary Johnson’s immigration reform plan, which is the most sensible on offer right now:

Immigration into the United States by ambitious, willing workers and their families is a good thing.  Not only is it a historical and energizing part of American culture and experience, it is vital to our economy. These positive benefits should not be sacrificed or reduced in any solution to stop illegal immigration.  However, a clear distinction must be made between illegal and legal immigration. In reality, true and cost-effective border security will only be achieved through a common sense combination of technology, a market-based guest worker program, and a safe, but efficient system for the legal flow of immigrants to and from the United States.

1. Establish real and cost-effective border security.

• Continue to encourage and allow legal immigration.

• Support current border deterrents and security measures, with an understanding of the low cost benefit analysis of these methods.

2. Create a temporary guest worker program that makes sense.

•  Expand and streamline a market based temporary guest worker program.

•  Enact an application and tracking procedure for guest workers, such as an e-verify system. Procedures must be quick, simple and efficient in providing documentation information, and must meet the needs of both employers and willing workers.

• Require guest workers to not only pay income taxes, but provide proof of adequate health care coverage through insurance, secured savings programs, bonds, or a combination thereof.

• Allow spouses and dependents to enter the U.S. with guest workers, but only with proof of adequate health coverage and subject to the same background checks and health requirements.

3. Impose meaningful enforcement of immigration laws.

• Establish procedures and devote the resources to actually identify illegal immigrants and deport them.  Implement a “one strike, you’re out” policy toward illegal immigrants with regard to future eligibility for guest worker programs.

• Impose and enforce sanctions and fines for noncompliance with immigration laws by employers that are sufficiently costly, ensuring that the risks simply are not worth the rewards.

4. Enact a reality-based process for current illegal workers to earn legal status.

• Allow a two-year grace period during which illegal immigrants already in the U.S. can come forward, pay any taxes owed, provide proof of consistent employment, pass a criminal background check, and apply for guest worker status.

5. Reduce border crime.

• Address the root cause of most border crime by legalizing marijuana, thereby removing 70% of the current cross-border illegal drug trade and replacing cartel and prohibition-related violence with legal, regulated and nonviolent commerce.

6. Achieve a better working relationship with Mexico.

• Stimulate cross-border investment through a robust, above-board and legal guest worker program.

• Strengthen the Mexican government by dramatically weakening the cartels through the legalization of marijuana.

• Aggressively negotiate mutually beneficial agreements with Mexico regarding such issues as funds transfers, taxation of income earned in the U.S. by guest workers, and deportation and incarceration of Mexican nationals arrested in the United States.

[Updated the same day I posted, because I kill my darlings regularly.]

by Alex Fidel

Gary Johnson interview

It’s about 10 minutes in… unless you like gnarly technical progressive metal, then you can start from the beginning B-)

The Jackass 3D D-box ticket giveaway goes on until next week (Oct. 26th). Works for CinemaWest theaters only, the one we went to is in Petaluma, CA in Sonoma county.

by Alex Fidel

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704300604575554261952309990.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_news

Another bit of California nullification is about to take place. Since the Feds mostly used local law enforcement, the only problem we will have is with the DEA and federal patrol. Hopefully they won’t step up their game to where it will interfere with the new law. Otherwise we will have to begin on a long legal battle against the federal government, hoping that the Supreme Court will rule in our favor, or have to bear with it until a new administration (hopefully Gary Johnson or Ron Paul), or, dare I say, encourage ganjapreneurs to use their second amendment rights to at least stand up for themselves, even though they will probably lose.

by Alex Fidel

Gary Johnson on TV. photo credit: unknown

Gary Johnson is the honorary chairman of Our America Initiative, on the boards of directors of both Students for Sensible Drug Policy and Students for Liberty, and was the former two-term Republican governor of New Mexico.

Now, I know what you think. ‘Republican? Ew!’ I understand your feelings, I ‘ew’ at a lot of Republicans myself. But, Gary Johnson has some surprising stances. For instance, he supports fully and unequivocally the legalization of marijuana, he would have vetoed the infamous AZ immigration bill if he had been governor, he has never been for the Iraq War, and thinks the Afghan War no longer serves the purpose we originally went in for. Johnson was pretty much the only governor to support Ron Paul for president in 2008.

Johnson even admits fully to smoking (and inhaling) marijuana several times a week. He no longer smokes pot, and he abstains from drinking as well. He is an accomplished athlete and entrepreneur, climbing Mt. Everest with a broken leg, and starting a one-man handyman business that eventually had 1,000 employees when he sold it.

His race for governorship was quite entrepreneurial. He was a complete outsider. The Republican Party told him his ideas were nice, but that he just couldn’t win. Well, he won. Then he got re-elected. In a state that is 2 to 1 Democrat.

As governor, Johnson vetoed over 750 bills, not including all the line item vetoes. He did this, because everything was to be done in a cost-benefit analysis; best product/service, lowest cost. He was an advocate of school choice and voucher systems. He also supported a woman’s right to choose up to the point of viability (he is pro-choice), while still gaining praise from pro-life groups for policies such as parental consent for minors, etc. He advocated for the legalization of marijuana while governor, which caused his approval rating to drop sharply, but it eventually rose as he explained his views openly and honestly to the people.

They respected him for putting issues and principles first, politics last.

The people of New Mexico, being 2 to 1 Democrat, recognized not only good stewardship of tax dollars, but honesty in government. Gary Johnson as a person is very humble and down-to-earth, and has a great deal of integrity. People respected a politician that didn’t talk down to them, talk in circles, or pander to votes. Johnson says pretty much the same thing to any audience. For example, he recently spoke at the FreedomWorks 9/12 rally on Washington. He did mention his views of the War on Drugs, only to be met with 70% boos, 30% cheers. However, when he talked about putting an end to nation-building wars, he got nothing but cheers, so there is progress being made.

We can learn a lot from Gary Johnson, not just with government but as people. If you think about it, we as people should change first. It is only if we change that our government will change. Bottom-up is the only way things ever change. Top-down force never works, because we get the government we deserve. But if we have integrity, and set high standards for others’ integrity, not only will government end up with more integrity, but in our personal lives will be much better, because we will look for integrity in other people as well. That’s why the Our America Initiative logo has the ‘u’ and ‘me’ (as bolded previously) in a different color, to show that it has to start with you and me.

Johnson is supposedly coming out with a book, called the Seven Principles of Good Government. I’ll go over them one by one (they’re not the unabridged versions; they are the shortened versions from the Our America site). They are more like life lessons than they are political.:

1- Seek reality and base all decisions and actions upon it.

Rational thought and decision making. Can you say common sense? Unfortunately, politicians don’t make decisions based on reality. They ignore the facts, and there for embrace things like Keynesian economics and the War on Drugs. That’s why there’s a huge disconnect between the people and politicians on things like the War on Drugs.

2- Be honest to all people all of the time.

Wouldn’t it be nice if more people were like this? Wouldn’t it be especially nice if more politicians were like this? I try to live my life this way, with the exception of things that involve privacy, but I never decieve. When you spend a minute listening to Gary Johnson speak, you know he says what he means and means what he says.

3- Acknowledge your critics, but do what’s right.

Going back to how Gary Johnson says what he means and means what he says, he sticks to his convictions, but is open to the facts. For example, at an Our America event during a Q&A section, a small amount of the questions people would ask him would be responded by ‘I’m not going to pretend to know the answer to that.’ If he doesn’t know all the facts for a specific thing, he’s not going to lie or deceive. He’ll take their advice, and look into the issue himself, coming to a conclusion of what he believes is right. That’s how he got his position on the drug war. He wanted to look at the drug problem and consider legalization as a possible alternative.

4- Determine your goal, develop a plan and then execute it.

He fought against the odds to become governor and he fought against the odds to climb Mt. Everest with a broken leg. He obviously has great strategy that we can all learn from. Hopefully this is laid out further in his book, and can inspire a lot of people.

5- Communicate.

He isn’t touring around the country for nothing. He believes what he is saying needs to be said, and that other people should hear it. We aren’t going to ‘right the fiscal ship’-as Gary often says-without communication.

6- Anything that could be revealed eventually, should be revealed immediately.

Transparency would be nice… try telling that to Washington.

7- Find a job you love and make a difference.

Gary Johnson made a difference, both in his company Big J Enterprises (the name Big J is rumored to come from the slang for a fatty joint hahah) and in his governorship.

Now, Gary Johnson is not perfect. No one is. But, you can get pretty damn close, especially with all that integrity.

Gary Johnson is a rumored 2012 Republican presidential contender. He can’t announce it officially, because Our America is a 501c4 non-profit advocacy committee. But people are keeping their eyes out, because Fred Thompson did the same thing for the ‘08 election. Don’t underestimate him either. Just because he is relatively unknown, does not mean he has no chance. That’s what they said in New Mexico before he served two terms as their governor.

Go to OurAmericaInitiative.com to find out more. Regardless how you feel about the issues, at least respect the man’s character. New Mexico did, and they were 2 to 1 Democrat.

————

Gary Johnson joins KSUN Radio’s Freethought Radio (hosted by yours truly) on Tuesday, October 19th at 8PM Pacific Time, only at ksunradio.com

So word is the GOP is going to pick up seats this November. Not because they’ve received a positive review or mandate of sorts from Americans, but because they’re the minority party and the majority party is sucking it. So says Gary Johnson, so take it to the bank. Yet, rather than let Democrats continue to orchestrate their loss of the House – lie low, in other words – the Republicans gave Democrats an issue to criticize them for by releasing the GOP’s newest pledge to America, which may charitably be described as a small step in the right direction that will be broken soon. (Spoiler alert.) So for American national politics it’s actually pretty good.

In spite of much chatter by the pinhead guild on Television, the Internet, and Twitter, no one seems sure if Republicans were foolish or wise to give Democrats ammunition for a final fall charge. When Democrats point out that Republicans can’t expect voters to take their Pledge very seriously for a lack of small government bonafides and fiscal credibility, Republicans retort that Democrats have less of each, and lost them faster. So that’s the choice. Actually it’s worse than that.

I watched the Daily Show tonight, and the joke went that if Jon Stewart were Bill O’Reilly’s size and sizzle he could influence the national debate as much as O’Reilly does, and everyone would have affordable health insurance. I assume that Stewart believes a better version of Obamacare would accomplish precisely that. So do Republicans, who are apparently now the champions of repeal-re-reform health care. No, it’s not a bill that tears down the regulation that prevents most aspects of health care from operating like the elective surgery industry. It’s something else. Perhaps they’ll call it “Republicare,” missing the irony. Like I said, that’s the choice. Not so animating.

By the way, GOP: do not call your repeal-re-reform “Republicare.” You’ll ruin “Republic,” a truly fine English word. Then again, Republics are inherently a compromise because, as a form of government, they necessarily restrict the freedom citizens principally charged them with preserving. Like the TSA. Yet most Libertarians fly, not really having an alternative. Now do you see why I like limited government?

It’s also why I’m a huge fan of the Seasteading Institute, whose quest is simply to live freely in the classical conception. I think that’s more noble than space discovery, which I long for with the same part of my soul that led every mariner to sea.

We must learn to live freely amongst ourselves. Our bounty of historical evidence predicts we’ll do so when pigs fly.

Religion is a collective group of people’s conception of the natural order of things. Collectively religions accurately depict the natural order of things. Not because they are trying, however.  In fact, most religions tell believers it will elevate them above the natural order of things, or remake the others in its image in order to restore the rightful state of order.

Consider Judaism. It told a group of people they were more special than the natural order, and proved it by enslaving them in Egypt, bringing them out of Egypt, insulating them from the natural order for forty years, and then reintroduced them to the natural order of things, which is fighting to sustain their collective conception of natural order, which, like many other religions, offer interesting possibilities at what the natural order could be if it were the natural order, which it could be if it implemented its conception of natural order on everyone else.

Rather, religions together accurately depict natural order because the global concert of each religion’s actors all acting simultaneously and at once is precisely nature’s order. This is true even of Atheists who collectively function as a single religion. As do Voluntaryists, however non-coercively. And wouldn’t natural order be interesting if people, whom for so long have done nothing but coerce each other, just stopped it already? Then people could get on with figuring out whom they are, and being that person. What I’m saying is the great Greek aphorism – know thyself – is potentially unfulfilled.

Perhaps it requires a moment to understand that natural order is as natural order does. Whatever natural order may be, it always abides by the laws of physics, markets, and providence. So what all religions – and cultures, which like any collective group of people trying to achieve their conception of the natural order play a substantial role in shaping the natural order – have in common is a good indicator of what’s true about the human experience. For instance, no religion I’m aware of promises that the rain will fall only on the righteous, because clearly that’s not true. All religions that promise the return of its particular prophet or deity disclaim that the precise date or time is unknown. The exceptions to this all prove the rule, such as the Seventh Day Adventists who were so sure Jesus was returning in 1844 they didn’t bother to bring in the crops that year.

That’s why it’s important to consider how accurately a particular religion depicts the immutable laws by which all actors in the concert of natural order must obey, such as gravity and probability. Consequently, I’m particularly tolerant of religions that articulate and are consistent with the natural rights (see Locke, John; Hobbes, Thomas) that shape my conception of the natural order, which is freedom. I suppose that explains a lot about why some people think man made God in man’s image.

For instance, if God was made in my image he’d love freedom, hate coercion, but be a bit of a fatalist, being a big believer in providence and that the best we can do is to do the best we can. Of course, you can say the same of gazelles on African savannah.

Nature, then, provides the natural order with which the human experience is ultimately consistent. The obvious implication is that humans evolved directly from nature, which is scientifically true. Yet common to almost every human is belief in God or religion, befuddling Atheists. Perhaps gazelles marvel at the stars, thanking providence for sparing them from the day’s lions. That doesn’t account beyond nature’s order, however, for the gazelles the lions ate.

The fact is that natural life is short and brutal. Since humans are uniquely capable of attempting to recreate natural order in their conception of what natural order should be it should be no surprise that humans endeavor precisely that. Perhaps left to our own devices in a world devoid of government or religion – like in The Book of Eli, where the natural order of humankind was truly short and brutal – religion would be a most logical conclusion, as a preferable alternative to nature’s brute order. The logical end of that, though, is the same concert of religions, cultures, and individuals, as exist now, all fighting, one way or another, to assert their conception of natural order upon others. The common human experience, then, may be cyclical and never learns from its mistakes, something to which most religions stipulate. As does Cosmology (universe expanding, contracting, and over again).

If in a world devoid of government or religion life is short and brutal, rather than libertopia, one wonders how voluntaryism might take hold if not by force. Consider Ghengis Khan, the original neocon, who sincerely believed the only way to live at peace was to conquer potentially (and often actually) quarrelsome neighbors, and enforce a culture of peace with the hardest of iron fists – which he did. His only mandate to all within his ever-expanding territory was be peaceful. But it took many millions of lives to achieve that peace, and it lasted only as long as he could enforce it. George Bush might say that Khan violated his peaceful principles to implement his peaceful principles. Successfully, too, for a time.

Then again, hundreds of millions of lives have been wasted throughout history for reasons much less noble than creating a culture of relative peace. As a result I’m often convinced that neoconism is the lesser of the evils. The obvious counterargument to neoconism is that Alfred Nobel thought dynamite – his invention and at that time the world’s greatest weapon – would end large-scale warfare. And look how well that turned out. But as a friend pointed out the other day, Nobel may have actually been correct in principle, and his flaw one of scale. Perhaps hydrogen bombs are weapons great enough in global scale to end large-scale warfare, making irritating regional conflicts the norm rather than greater global upheaval.

Of course, regional conflicts involving nuclear weapons may quickly progress to global upheaval, which makes the neoconservative point about the importance of stopping unstable regimes such as Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. By contrast, neoconservatives tolerate Israel’s nuclear arsenal because they don’t think it’d be used for anything but self-preservation. Self-preservation is a natural right, and one superior to the right of coercion asserted by every invader – even those who claim the right of invasion to create a peaceful order. Human’s collective appreciation for the right of self-preservation may be precisely why implementing an aggressive neoconservative strategy effectively frightens the majority of us into inaction on the matter, leading then to the proliferation of nuclear weapons in unstable regions (e.g. Pakistan), the presence of which makes more likely the prospect of global warfare, which is ultimately much worse than irritating regional conflicts.

Worse, not only are we collectively unwilling to preclude the possibility of global warfare by forcibly stopping unstable regimes from obtaining nuclear weapons, we are unwilling even to destabilize those regimes by tearing down the restrictions on nuclear energy in the United States – ironically, the form of energy powering the Navy, our greatest projection of power – and instantly bankrupt unstable and unwanted regimes the world over. The mass proliferation of nuclear energy in America would reduce regional conflicts into simply national conflicts. Or at least nations in a given region couldn’t project their regional conflicts onto us, which would be outstanding.

So do we agree, then, on supporting nuclear energy? And did I mention Gov. Gary Johnson supports bustin’ down the door to nuclear energy in America? I’m on board.

Via Gov. Johnson’s twitter feed.
Part I:

Part II:

Part III:

Here’s a link and video from Gov. Johnson’s twitter feed. First, a Salon article about Gov. Johnson titled “The Most Interesting Republican You’ve Never Heard Of,” which is as curious as it is an understated title for an article essentially showing that Gov. Johnson shatters the left’s narrative of eeevil Republican politicians. It’s worth the read anyhow though, and I liked this bit too:

Johnson is betting that the country is in the mood for some more tough love, albeit wrapped in flamboyantly libertarian garb. It’ s a risky wager at best. But one thing is guaranteed: If Gary Johnson runs for president, he’ s sure to freshen up the national conversation. And those debates with Mitt Romney should be fun to watch.

A Gov. Johnson v. Gov. Romney debate would be epic. Common sense, plain-expression versus expert legal wordsmithing. Legal wordsmithing might carry the day in court, and in Andrew Sullivan’s portion of the blogosphere, but common sense, but in the voting booth Gov. Johnson’s message will carry the day. As the article correctly points out, however, the challenge will be getting enough voters to hear Gov. Johnson’s message.

Now, a video:

When I retire to my library (har har, I live in a shoebox) for a nightcap tonight I’ll be reading these articles:

The Paranoid Center: How the panic over right-wing violence is being used to marginalize peaceful dissent. (Reason)

‘Chiefs, Thieves, and Priests’: Science writer Matt Ridley on the causes of poverty and prosperity. (Reason)

My Inflation Nightmare. (The Atlantic)

Supersonic Jump, from 23 miles in the air. (Old Gray Mare)

And because I can’t get enough Gary Johnson, You cut spending . . . (Reason)

Weekend TV that is good for you. Gary Johnson.

Ilya Somin at Volokh commenting on a recent article by Matt Yglesias, which complained that there should be less elected positions in State government and more appointed positions because it’s impossible to be an informed voter these days. In his words:

No real people are paying attention to what these different offices are, what the incumbents are doing, how they interact, who’s doing a good job, etc. Special interests who are able to hire professionals to monitor elected officials for them, by contrast, are able to make out like bandits.

I principally disagree for two reasons. First, the Internet makes it easier than ever before in world history to be an informed voter. I don’t buy the argument that it’s impossible to be an informed voter. To the extent a voter cares to be reasonably informed he/she can certainly inform him/herself as to the candidates and broad issues. With respect to Yglesias’ point that “[n]o real people are paying attention . . .” he may be correct. It does seem that the majority of citizens don’t pay enough attention, or simply don’t care, preferring to whine about the results of their apathy rather than cure it by taking an active interest in the institutions and people that govern them. Yglesias appears to prefer, as a matter of practicality, relieving the electorate of the political burden (voting) they clearly shirk by giving fewer elected candidates more authority to appoint more bureaucrats. My second objection is that if our collective apathy towards voting results in ineffective, corrupt, and grossly inefficient government then tough shit for us. Democracy (and civil liberty) is not without consequence. We suffer for our apathy. We should willingly bear those consequences, especially when we have at our fingertips the means to improve our democracy.

Ilya Somin makes a couple of different points:

I completely agree with Yglesias that most voters know little or nothing about these offices, and that this creates an opening for interest group influence. I have made similar arguments myself. The problem is exacerbated by the reality that for most voters, it is actually rational to devote little or no time to acquiring political information. It’s also rational for them to do a poor job of analyzing the political information they do know.

At the same time, I am skeptical of the solution that Yglesias implicitly seems to advocate: making these positions nonelected offices. If the Commissioner of the General Land Office becomes a bureaucratic position appointed by the governor, that doesn’t eliminate the problem of voter ignorance. It merely shifts it to a different election. Now, the question of who the governor is likely to choose as the next Commissioner is added to the long list of issues at stake in the gubernatorial election.

Next, Know Your Rights.  If you don’t think that’s important, I invite you to sit in on a criminal procedure class at my law school sometime and witness how federal courts have emasculated the Fourth Amendment.

[UPDATED 3/5/2010 @ 10:50 pm].  More here from Reason on the current administration’s frightening defenestration of civil liberty via the obliteration of the Fourth Amendment.

Re-read that last sentence again, and it doesn’t take an Einstein to figure out that any protestations on the Obama administration’s part that they have any respect for the 4th Amendment or privacy is utter bilge. I wrote on the government’s growing snooping powers in ye Moderne Age at theAmerican Conservative back in February.

Here’s a dated, but good read re: Paul Krugman.

Time after time, Krugman leaves me wide-eyed with wonder at how much economics he has to forget to write those [NY Times] columns.

Interview with an Austrian-school, Soviet economist who defected to the United States.

Yuri N. Maltsev received his MA in history and social sciences at Moscow State University and his PhD in economics at the Institute for Labor Research in Moscow. Some of his major achievements include consulting on Central and Eastern European economic, trade and political issues, as well as appearing on national television and radio programs. He currently is a professor of economics at Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

What convinced you of the merits of the Austrian School of Economics over other schools of thought?
The Austrian School of Economics is economics of freedom, economics for free people, economics of human action, not of government design. It is the only school which accurately predicted the fate of the socialist experiment, which cost over 150 million lives last century. Ludwig von Mises showed with precise and irrefutable logic why socialism could never work.

Related: The confluence of classic liberalism and Austrian economics.

Classical liberalism — which we shall call here simply liberalism — is based on the conception of civil society as, by and large, self-regulating when its members are free to act within very wide bounds of their individual rights. Among these the right to private property, including freedom of contract and free disposition of one’s own labor, is given a very high priority. Historically, liberalism has manifested a hostility to state action, which, it insists, should be reduced to a minimum (Raico 1992, 1994).

Austrian economics is the name given to the school, or strand, of economic theory that began with Carl Menger (Kirzner 1987; Hayek 1968), and it has often been linked — both by adherents and opponents — to the liberal doctrine. The purpose of this paper is to examine some of the connections that exist, or have been held to exist, between Austrian economics and liberalism.

Change Status Quo: KSM trial probably occurring in Gitmo. I guess that means the White House thinks terror is more akin to war than crime, Terrorists are more akin to war-actors than criminals, and military tribunals are a more appropriate forum than civil courts in which to try them. Where’d they get that idea? I wonder what Neal Katyal, current Deputy Solicitor General, thinks about it, having made his name by arguing (successfully) Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, which held that the Bush administration’s first iteration of military commissions to try detainees at Guantanamo Bay violate both the UCMJ and the four Geneva Conventions. I’m interested to hear Katyal explain what substantive changes the Obama administration has made to the Tribunals and why those changes now satisfy the arguments Kaytal ably posed against the prior version of military tribunals. More here.

Interesting read here by Timothy Garton Ash, whom I linked to in On Armenia and Genocide, about the challenges facing the EU’s monetary policies. Excerpt below is the end of Ash’s article:

Behind the monetary lurks the fiscal; behind the fiscal, the economic; behind the economic, the political; and behind the political, the historical. The deepest reality underlying this crisis is that the personal experiences and memories that have pushed European integration ahead for 65 years, since 1945, are losing their force. The personal memory of war, occupation, humiliation, European barbarism; fear of Germany, including Germany’s fear of itself; the Soviet threat, the cold war, the “return to Europe” as a guarantee of hard-won freedom; the hope of restored European greatness.

These were massive biographical motivators, which drove people like Mitterrand and Kohl even unto the euro. Can Europeans go on building Europe without such profound motivators? Are there new ones in sight?

Yesterday’s Pentagon attacker was a left-wing truther. Here’s some reasons why non-left wing, non-truthers shouldn’t try to make political hay out of it.

So, instead of playing the blame game so unapologetically employed by the Left when they feel they can spin things to their political advantage, I’m not going to say that Bedell’s actions at the Pentagon epitomize the leftist worldview. Rather, he was just crazy, as clearly indicated by his belief in the craziest of modern crazy conspiracy theories, 9/11 Truthism.

Are most Truthers leftists? Yes. But that doesn’t mean that all left-leaning Americans are thereby just as crazy as the most extreme among them; it simply indicates that when a leftist goes crazy in the post-9/11 era, he often gloms onto Truthism as his paranoia of choice.

Put it this way: Leftism fails as a coherent philosophy on its own terms. We shouldn’t try to wring significance from the delusional outburst of someone who just happened to be leftist. There are plenty of ways to logically disembowel Marxism and its numerous noxious contemporary offspring without having to resort to an unnecessary round of political “gotcha!”

Did you know that Willie Nelson smoked weed on the roof of the white house? Plus this on Nelson, from Reason’s 35 Heroes of Freedom.

One of the great crossover artists in popular music, the Texas legend pulled off a Martin Luther King Jr.-like achievement by uniting hippies and rednecks in a single audience.

The most plausible Republican fix to the fiscal mess . . . I’m still in the tank for Gary Johnson.

Finally, Reason’s Peter Suderman on the ‘jobs created or saved’ canard:

In selling the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act—otherwise known as the economic stimulus—to the American public last year, the Obama administration promised that the massive spending package would serve as a sort of Keynesian Red Bull, allowing the tired economy to keep partying hard by pumping up GDP and trapping unemployment in single digits. Or, as the administration put it in January 2009, the bill was to create or save three to four million jobs over the next two years, with over 90 percent of those jobs in the private sector.

Instead, the economy reacted like it just downed a glass of whiskey and warm milk: Private sector output fell sharply, and last fall, the unemployment rate hit 10.2 percent. * * *

That still leaves us with a question: How many jobs did the stimulus actually create? The best answer to that question is not 1 million or 2.1 million or any of the other figures that have been batted around in recent months by the administration and its defenders. It’s not even a figure at all; instead it’s another question: Who knows?

But don’t take my word for it; take the CBO’s. Unlike the administration, the CBO is a nonpartisan entity without a particular interest in strengthening its claims further than they should. All the numbers it produces are estimates, and the agency devotes plenty of ink to explaining its methodology and the uncertainties it entails. Last month’s report cautioned that “considerable uncertainty exists about many of these economic relationships that are important in the modeling,” which is why many of its estimates come in rather wide ranges. And its December report noted that “it is impossible to determine how many of the reported jobs would have existed in the absence of the stimulus package.”

In other words, don’t blame the CBO, which is merely doing its lawful duty to produce compliant estimates (a fact which it dryly makes clear in the introduction). Instead, blame the administration, the government-spending enthusiasts, the liberal pundits, and anyone else who treats these pre-cooked estimates as settled fact.

I don’t know a lot about Mitch Daniels, Governor of Indiana, but Ross Douthat calls him the best governor in America, and recently analyzed Gov. Daniels’ prospects for the 2012/2016 presidency. Long excerpt below:

Since then, though, he’s become America’s best governor. In a just world, Daniels’s record would make him the Tea Party movement’s favorite politician. During the fat years of the mid-2000s, while most governors went on spending sprees, he was trimming Indiana’s payroll, slowing the state government’s growth, and turning a $800 million deficit into a consistent surplus. Now that times are hard, his fiscal rigor is paying off: the state’s projected budget shortfall for 2011, as a percentage of the budget, is the third-lowest in the country.

But Daniels hasn’t just been a Dr. No on policy. His “Healthy Indiana” plan, which offers catastrophic coverage to low-income residents, aspires to eventually cover 130,000 people, about a third of the state’s long-term uninsured. He’s pushed targeted investments in kindergarten programs, the police force and the child welfare office. And he’s been a pragmatic free-marketeer, rather than a strict ideologue. His controversial decision to lease the Indiana toll road reaped $3.8 billion for the state. But when an attempt to outsource welfare enrollment went awry, Daniels yanked the system back into the public sector.

If this portrait sounds suspiciously glowing, keep in mind that I saw the governor last Monday, in between the CPAC gathering of movement conservatives and the White House health care forum. In both cases, the contrast made Daniels seem particularly appealing.

Unlike the politicians who spoke at CPAC, Daniels eschewed triumphalism about conservatism’s prospects. “I think a lot of Republicans are over-reading all of this,” he said. “They’re a little ahead of themselves, a little too giddy.” What his party still needs, and doesn’t have he said, are the answers to “the ‘what’ question — what are we about, what are our answers to the obvious problems the nation has?”

Unlike the Republicans at the health care summit, he balanced criticisms of Obamacare with candor about the problem of the uninsured. “This is a very real issue, and we were determined to have a constructive approach to it — but one that would be affordable.” Healthy Indiana, he went on, is “incredibly popular with the people who are a part of it. I get tearful hugs from people who just want to tell me that it’s brought them peace of mind.”

And unlike both CPAC-goers and his party’s leadership, Daniels was blunt about the challenges of deficit reduction. “There’s been some very healthy hell-raising going on in the country,” he said of the Tea Parties. “But to my knowledge, nobody’s gotten up in front of those rallies and explained what’s going to have to happen.” His ideal approach to the deficit would look like Paul Ryan’s fiscal roadmap, all spending restraint and no new taxes. But one way or another, deficit reduction “has to be done” — even if “you have to take the second- or third-best method.”

All this honesty might evaporate on the campaign trail. And if it didn’t, would Daniels have a prayer? He’s admired by elites, but unknown at the grass-roots level. He’s a social conservative, and his gubernatorial campaigns have played the populist card successfully — but he lacks the built-in constituencies of other candidates. And his years’ carrying water for the Bush administration’s budgets would doubtless be used against him in the battle for the Tea Partiers’ affections.

For a Daniels candidacy to catch fire, what’s left of the Republican establishment, currently (if reluctantly) coalescing around Mitt Romney, would have to decide that he’s the better pick. That would mean gambling that the best way to defeat the most charismatic president of modern times is to nominate a balding, wonky Midwesterner who reminds voters of their accountant.

No offense Gov. Daniels, but I’ll stick endorsing Gary Johnson for President.

Via the Humble Libertarian: