I will contribute Ten Reasons Not To Abolish Slavery Of course, this is sort of meta-ironic humor. The best one: quote:Without slavery the former slaves would run amuck, stealing, raping, killing, and generally causing mayhem. Preservation of social order therefore rules out the abolition of slavery. Southerners lived in dread of slave uprisings. Northerners in the mid-19th century found the situation in their own region already sufficiently intolerable, owing to the massive influx of drunken, brawling Irishmen into the country in the 1840s and 1850s. Throwing free blacks, whom the Irish generally disliked, into the mix would well-nigh guarantee social chaos.
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# ? Feb 17, 2016 01:00 |
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# ? May 14, 2024 18:16 |
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Great post, and I learned something about pre-revolutionary France. Watching Libertarians go googly over monarchy and aristocracy tickles me with glee. "We believe in individual liberty, meritocracy, and firmly declare that only voluntary interactions are moral! Okay step 1, everyone has to bow and scrape to the first man who falls out of a magic vagina. Step 2, all land and political power is vested in descendants from whichever badass medieval warlord was best at killing people. Step 3, people with the right last names get more rights than everyone else. Okay then!"
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# ? Feb 17, 2016 01:21 |
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VitalSigns posted:Great post, and I learned something about pre-revolutionary France. Thanks. It seems to me that this defense of the Ancien Régime is basically a Pavlovian response to anything that smacks of socialism. Oh, so the sans-culottes wanted price maximums on necessities, clearly this means that Louis XVI and his nobility were all saints and the Physiocrats are our honored ideological ancestors. But there's also a chicken-and-egg thing going on here, since the major trend in Anglophone French Revolution scholarship for the past few decades (and the Francophone scholarship for what I am given to understand is a shorter span of time than that) has been to make it out to be the precursor to all totalitarianism, Robespierre as proto-HitlerStalin, etc. This was driven in no small part by a Cold War anti-communist political agenda. So honestly it's just AP Euro taken to its logical conclusion. I mean it's not like Schama is a libertarian or anything. GunnerJ fucked around with this message at 01:40 on Feb 17, 2016 |
# ? Feb 17, 2016 01:33 |
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Given that I understand old school liberalism was actually thoroughly elitist it's not really very surprising to see modern ultraliberal thought being pretty OK with monarchy, or at least nobility and strict social classes. I guess the veneer of saying one thing and meaning another is just slipping a bit, or perhaps the author doesn't realise the contradiction entirely and thinks it's actually a revelation. Rather than just the logical expression of the "Freedom for Everyone! (as long as you're white, wealthy, and Our Sort Of People)" ethos. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 01:41 on Feb 17, 2016 |
# ? Feb 17, 2016 01:38 |
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VitalSigns posted:Great post, and I learned something about pre-revolutionary France. Step 4, if your landlord decides one day that the color of your skin, your church, your preferred sex organs, etc are not to his liking, then your landlord has total freedom to take all your poo poo and kick you out. If you don't like this, tough poo poo.
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# ? Feb 17, 2016 01:57 |
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Nessus posted:I will contribute Ten Reasons Not To Abolish Slavery The conclusion is the best part: Robert Higgs posted:At one time, countless people found one or more of the foregoing reasons adequate grounds on which to oppose the abolition of slavery. Aha, charade you are, Statists, for taxation is the real slavery! Well done, Professor Higgs. Too often we hear the opponents of eliminating the federal government arguing that doing so will unleash hordes of drunken, brawling Fenians and negroes to rape all our white women. I agree; those people I've made up are wrong, and we should abolish all government.
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# ? Feb 17, 2016 02:45 |
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I don't suppose it matters that abolitionists wanted slaves to live as free citizens of a government that existed to (among other things) suppress crime? I guess you could say that we will enjoy superior protection provided by a DRO once emancipated from State control, but then what happens when someone makes the same argument against DROs with the State as its ironic foil?
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# ? Feb 17, 2016 02:56 |
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GunnerJ posted:I don't suppose it matters that abolitionists wanted slaves to live as free citizens of a government that existed to (among other things) suppress crime? I guess you could say that we will enjoy superior protection provided by a DRO once emancipated from State control, but then what happens when someone makes the same argument against DROs with the State as its ironic foil? warlordism well, more and less organized warlordism warlordism small enough for the everyman to be able to understand, I guess you could say.
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# ? Feb 17, 2016 03:08 |
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If we're going for idiocy on mises.org there's always this gem, in which the author argues that someone objecting to an a different libertarian's article in which it was argued that the obliteration of all human life on earth is preferable to taxation didn't understand it, and also the original article didn't go far enough anyways.
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# ? Feb 17, 2016 03:25 |
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GunnerJ posted:I don't suppose it matters that abolitionists wanted slaves to live as free citizens of a government that existed to (among other things) suppress crime? I guess you could say that we will enjoy superior protection provided by a DRO once emancipated from State control, but then what happens when someone makes the same argument against DROs with the State as its ironic foil? "He who said that 'A century of civil war is better than a day of slavery' was right. God grant that every river in this land of ours may run with blood, and every city be laid in ashes rather than this war should come to an end without the utter destruction of every vestige of this curse so monstrous." Look at that! Abolitionists were the realwarlords and monsters! Not like the peaceful slaveholders, who merely wanted to be left alone.
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# ? Feb 17, 2016 03:31 |
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Grand Theft Autobot posted:Of all the hills to die on, why do Libertarians always pick child labor and age of consent? Hey, that's not fair! Sometimes they pick Confederate secession or Pinochet's Argentina.
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# ? Feb 17, 2016 03:35 |
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The Larch posted:If we're going for idiocy on mises.org there's always this gem, in which the author argues that someone objecting to an a different libertarian's article in which it was argued that the obliteration of all human life on earth is preferable to taxation didn't understand it, and also the original article didn't go far enough anyways. "We wouldn't need to engage in rights-violating coercion to get people to contribute to a ten billion dollar* save the world pot, we'd just publish the names and addresses of everyone who doesn't contribute so they can be 'ostracized' " *Also at the thought we could stop an asteroid for $10 billion with profit left over. The Apollo program was a much much smaller undertaking that cost $25 billion in 1973 or $133 billion in 2015 dollars. Why are libertarians so bad at business.
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# ? Feb 17, 2016 03:48 |
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VitalSigns posted:*Also at the thought we could stop an asteroid for $10 billion with profit left over. The Apollo program was a much much smaller undertaking that cost $25 billion in 1973 or $133 billion in 2015 dollars. Why are libertarians so bad at business. Being bad at business while fetishing the market is more or less a requirement for these yahoos. Not for the first time, China Milville's article on libertarianism/seasteading comes in handy: quote:Libertarianism, by contrast, is a theory of those who find it hard to avoid their taxes, who are too small, incompetent or insufficiently connected to win Iraq-reconstruction contracts, or otherwise chow at the state trough. In its maundering about a mythical ideal-type capitalism, libertarianism betrays its fear of actually existing capitalism, at which it cannot quite succeed. It is a philosophy of capitalist inadequacy.
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# ? Feb 17, 2016 04:03 |
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VitalSigns posted:*Also at the thought we could stop an asteroid for $10 billion with profit left over. The Apollo program was a much much smaller undertaking that cost $25 billion in 1973 or $133 billion in 2015 dollars. Why are libertarians so bad at business. <Dr. Evil picture>
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# ? Feb 17, 2016 04:04 |
GunnerJ posted:I don't suppose it matters that abolitionists wanted slaves to live as free citizens of a government that existed to (among other things) suppress crime? I guess you could say that we will enjoy superior protection provided by a DRO once emancipated from State control, but then what happens when someone makes the same argument against DROs with the State as its ironic foil?
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# ? Feb 17, 2016 05:08 |
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VitalSigns posted:"We wouldn't need to engage in rights-violating coercion to get people to contribute to a ten billion dollar* save the world pot, we'd just publish the names and addresses of everyone who doesn't contribute so they can be 'ostracized' " nah man, that's all because of like, government inefficiency and stuff. a group of corporations with a profit motive would get it done for way cheaper! (they would shortsightedly siphon as much of it away for themselves as they could and live like kings until The End)
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# ? Feb 17, 2016 05:16 |
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Turns out $10 billion was just enough to outfit a huge luxurious gold-carpeted deep underground asteroid shelter for the board of directors and a few large private stockholders, stocked with enough caviar, blow, and hookers to last thirty years. Sorry small-time investors, should have demanded access to confidential company minutes before buying shares.
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# ? Feb 17, 2016 05:21 |
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Well, I finally got anti-FDA guy to stop messaging me - because despite what he did, he kept dragging out the argument. I'm actually surprised what did it. I just told him I didn't trust any products that sold themselves on orientalist woo or appeals to tradition. I specifically said that the whole idea of tradition - doing something because it's what you've always done - is a poor justification for anything. I specifically brought up comparisons to sodomy laws, marginalizing women, and corporal punishment. He promptly flipped his poo poo and blocked me:quote:Yes, I still think "orientalist woo" is a racist term. Especially in the context that you used it of mocking all non-western medical practices. quote:You think that everything that is not modern, Western culture is evil. quote:At your core, you share the same ideas about the superiority of your own modern, western culture to every other culture that exists, or ever has existed.
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# ? Feb 17, 2016 05:38 |
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VitalSigns posted:Turns out $10 billion was just enough to outfit a huge luxurious gold-carpeted deep underground asteroid shelter for the board of directors and a few large private stockholders, stocked with enough caviar, blow, and hookers to last thirty years. Remarkably, it took only a few days for life to return to normal after the historic Near Miss event. Faced with the end, most people behaved with startling decorum, and the riots that did break out were handled with much greater ease than anyone could have hoped for, in retrospect. It was however over a week later that anyone thought to check on the much-ballyhooed Galt's Bunker, and several more days passedt before federal troops could force their way inside. They didn't face any active resistance, much to everyone's surprise, but the entrance cavern had already partially collapsed due to cost cutting in its ceiling reinforcement, and of course power had long since gone out to the decent elevator. After a marathon effort, the vault door was removed from its mountings, which had already warped. Whomever had been the lowest-bid contractor to install it clearly hadn't bothered to either check the weight limits its brackets, or bothered with load balancing. News feeds of the entry teams cut out at this point, but archival footage rediscovered years after the fact revealed scenes of pure bedlam within. Investigators at the time could not determined whether the inhabitants had decided to go out in a drug-fueled self-destructive orgy, had descended into a murderous civil war for total control, or had reverted to a particularly brutal version of neo-feudal rule complete with the re-institution of slavery and selective cannibalism. Upon sober examination of the reams of meandering, poorly written manifestos somehow generated in the short time the Galters had survived, later historians settled on the now-famous "All Three" hypothesis. Captain_Maclaine fucked around with this message at 05:48 on Feb 17, 2016 |
# ? Feb 17, 2016 05:38 |
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Captain_Maclaine posted:News feeds of the entry teams cut out at this point, but archival footage rediscovered years after the fact revealed scenes of pure bedlam within. Investigators at the time could not determined whether the inhabitants had decided to go out in a drug-fueled self-destructive orgy, had descended into a murderous civil war for total control, or had reverted to a particularly brutal version of neo-feudal rule complete with the re-institution of slavery and selective cannibalism.
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# ? Feb 17, 2016 05:41 |
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paragon1 posted:nah man, that's all because of like, government inefficiency and stuff. a group of corporations with a profit motive would get it done for way cheaper! Libertarian ideals about corporations promoting the public good in Libertopia in face of reality have to do one of two things. First option: It ends up looking something like this: Specifically, the steep drop. All corruption would by some wondrous magic vanish the instant government completely excuses itself. The incredibly corrupt ways businesses act with minuscule government involvement are still somehow government's fault and for no adequately explored reason they would suddenly become humanitarian as all hell if government wasn't bothering them. Second option: Much more commonly, real life is ignored and the historical implications of loosened regulations are never, ever acknowledged.
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# ? Feb 17, 2016 05:41 |
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Polybius91 posted:Well, I finally got anti-FDA guy to stop messaging me - because despite what he did, he kept dragging out the argument. I'm actually surprised what did it. I just told him I didn't trust any products that sold themselves on orientalist woo or appeals to tradition. I specifically said that the whole idea of tradition - doing something because it's what you've always done - is a poor justification for anything. I specifically brought up comparisons to sodomy laws, marginalizing women, and corporal punishment. He promptly flipped his poo poo and blocked me: Too stupid to live, if you ask me.
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# ? Feb 17, 2016 05:59 |
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VitalSigns posted:"We wouldn't need to engage in rights-violating coercion to get people to contribute to a ten billion dollar* save the world pot, we'd just publish the names and addresses of everyone who doesn't contribute so they can be 'ostracized' " If they were good at anything then they wouldn't be libertarians
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# ? Feb 17, 2016 06:03 |
Orange Fluffy Sheep posted:Second option: Much more commonly, real life is ignored and the historical implications of loosened regulations are never, ever acknowledged.
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# ? Feb 17, 2016 06:05 |
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Nessus posted:In the other thread, Jrode specifically and explicitly said you can't use historical evidence as a point against his economic conclusions, only as a point in their favor. He did not actually say "praexology," though, probably because we know that word. He's described his use of "praxeology" before, but everyone justifiably pointed out that praxeology is bullshit and jrod is an idiot for using it. So he no longer refers to praxeology; jrod thinks that if he doesn't say "praxeology" then no one will call him out for using it
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# ? Feb 17, 2016 06:14 |
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Nessus posted:In the other thread, Jrode specifically and explicitly said you can't use historical evidence as a point against his economic conclusions, only as a point in their favor. He did not actually say "praexology," though, probably because we know that word. It was actually better, he linked some studies on the minimum wage and asked us to criticize them or admit that he was right. When I pointed out that academic criticism of his first paper already existed and linked it for him, he pivoted to "well actually you can't use studies to prove anything about economics anyway, Austrian economics is right so anything that doesn't support it is wrong"
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# ? Feb 17, 2016 06:21 |
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Polybius91 posted:Well, I finally got anti-FDA guy to stop messaging me - because despite what he did, he kept dragging out the argument. I'm actually surprised what did it. I just told him I didn't trust any products that sold themselves on orientalist woo or appeals to tradition. I specifically said that the whole idea of tradition - doing something because it's what you've always done - is a poor justification for anything. I specifically brought up comparisons to sodomy laws, marginalizing women, and corporal punishment. He promptly flipped his poo poo and blocked me: To be fair, "oriental" does have some kind of baggage riding along with it, though as a pale foreign devil myself I don't know enough to articulate the nuance going on with it. Anyway..I have a real entry this time. I figured it's good because I couldn't even be bothered to read it without skipping huge chunks of it. TLDR: Captain America is totally a pro-libertarian movie you guys! The Rothbardian Implications of 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier' posted:When the credits started rolling for Captain America: Winter Soldier, I managed to initiate a round of applause. It was slow in building, but eventually it picked up. This was surprising and reassuring, given that the audience doing the clapping was in Alabama, thought to be one of America’s many centers of jingoism, and since, unlike many other “action figure” movies, like the “oo-rah” Transformers and G.I. Joe franchises, the movie’s over-arching message was radically anti-jingoistic, and can even be interpreted as radically libertarian. [Spoilers ahead.]
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# ? Feb 17, 2016 06:36 |
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Lol it can't just be an indictment of the American police state and drone program in the wake of 9-11,no it's got to be against comon core as well
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# ? Feb 17, 2016 12:57 |
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Buried alive posted:To be fair, "oriental" does have some kind of baggage riding along with it, though as a pale foreign devil myself I don't know enough to articulate the nuance going on with it. Orientalism is specifically the practice of treating cultures east of Europe as a big mess of exotic stereotypes and mystery. Alladin, for instance, can definitly be criticized as orientalist as it glues Egypt throught to India together in one big blob of other. Similarly, references to traditional Chinese medicine and the secret wisdom there's is definitly an orientalist position, since it exotifies and stereotypes a set of complex cultural practices into a format for easy consumption by western assholes. Like people who turn Buddhist for 6 months mostly by buying things in specialty shops.
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# ? Feb 17, 2016 13:38 |
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Basically Orientalism is when you describe Asians as if they're Tolkein-style elves.
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# ? Feb 17, 2016 13:59 |
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Anyone interested in all that bagged: Read Orientalism by Edward Said. It is the quintessential starting point, and a fascinating read if dense academic writing is your thing. Certainly worlds better than Mises or Jrode screeds.
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# ? Feb 17, 2016 15:42 |
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Orange Fluffy Sheep posted:Libertarian ideals about corporations promoting the public good in Libertopia in face of reality have to do one of two things. If business does it, it's not corruption, because turning your money into their money is what businesses are for. QED statists.
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# ? Feb 17, 2016 16:38 |
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Muscle Tracer posted:Anyone interested in all that bagged: Read Orientalism by Edward Said. It is the quintessential starting point, and a fascinating read if dense academic writing is your thing. Certainly worlds better than Mises or Jrode screeds. It's worth reading, but let me add my own word of caution here that "dense" is putting it lightly when it comes to Said's writing. Dude could make reactor shielding with just a pen and a notepad.
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# ? Feb 17, 2016 17:41 |
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Captain_Maclaine posted:It's worth reading, but let me add my own word of caution here that "dense" is putting it lightly when it comes to Said's writing. Dude could make reactor shielding with just a pen and a notepad. Compared to other modern writers, maybe. It's certainly easier than reading 19th century philosophy, I guess
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# ? Feb 17, 2016 17:52 |
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Just a friendly reminder that there will be a televised (on Fox Business) debate for the Libertarian Party primaries. Also, supporters of the leading Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson, in a bid to make fun of Bernie Sanders, have unironically adopted the hashtag #FeelTheJohnson. Because nothing says "Proud to be a Libertarian" than a dick joke. (The real joke is that Gary Johnson is a dick).
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# ? Feb 19, 2016 04:54 |
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YF19pilot posted:Just a friendly reminder that there will be a televised (on Fox Business) debate for the Libertarian Party primaries. Also, supporters of the leading Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson, in a bid to make fun of Bernie Sanders, have unironically adopted the hashtag #FeelTheJohnson. Because nothing says "Proud to be a Libertarian" than a dick joke. (The real joke is that Gary Johnson is a dick). Isn't he the guy who did that AMA and kept repeating this little spiel about becoming self employed and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps?
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# ? Feb 19, 2016 04:57 |
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Rhjamiz posted:Isn't he the guy who did that AMA and kept repeating this little spiel about becoming self employed and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps? narrow it down more than "libertarians"
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# ? Feb 19, 2016 05:41 |
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YF19pilot posted:Just a friendly reminder that there will be a televised (on Fox Business) debate for the Libertarian Party primaries. Also, supporters of the leading Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson, in a bid to make fun of Bernie Sanders, have unironically adopted the hashtag #FeelTheJohnson. Because nothing says "Proud to be a Libertarian" than a dick joke. (The real joke is that Gary Johnson is a dick). Are we going to get a child prostitution advocate this time?
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# ? Feb 19, 2016 07:01 |
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StandardVC10 posted:Are we going to get a child prostitution advocate this time? I don't know. According to the Libertarian Party website, these are the presidential primary candidates: As per https://www.lp.org/candidates/presidential-candidates-2016/ Marc Allan Feldman of Ohio Slogan: Votes Not For Sale Website: VotesNotForSale.com His "About" page is pretty void of any actual information, but according to his blog he's a physician from Cleveland, Ohio. His blog is pretty sparse, too, the most recent entry being a month old and titled "Kanye West, Be My Running Mate VP 2016" Cecil Ince of Missouri Slogan: Restore Liberty! Website: Restore-Liberty.Weebly.com Actor, Entrepreneur, Film Maker, and owner of Ince Films (no relation to Thomas H. Ince that I could find). Is originally from Texas and in 2010 ran for Texas House of Representatives Dist. 105, getting about 3.3% of the vote. Gary Johnson of New Mexico Slogan: Be Libertarian with me. Website: GaryJohnson2016.com Twitter: #FeelTheJohnson Former Republican governor of New Mexico from 1994-2003 (term limited), ran in the 2012 presidential election. The most popular of the Libertarian candidates, it seems. Steven Kerbel of Colorado Slogan: I Am Libertarian Website: SteveKerbel2016.com A businessman and author of the book Take “Everyman” Down – A 12 Step Program to servitude of the American Populace and Destruction of the American Dream. John McAfee of Tennessee Slogan: Uninstall The System Website: McAfee2016.com Twitter: #UninstallTheSystem Yes, that John McAfee. The one that made the Anti-Virus program, was on the run from the Belize Police for drugs and possibly murdering someone. Darryl Perry of New Hampshire Slogan: Please Donate Bitcoins - Scan QR Code Now Website: DarrylWPerry.com Upon clicking on the link, the website has a pop-in asking to donate in Bitcoin, with a QR code. Also a link to donate "Altcoins". Originally from Birmingham, AL, he's an author, publisher, radio and TV host; he currently hosts a bunch of libertarian podcasts and "news" casts. Buttcoins. Austin Petersen of Missouri Slogan: Taking Over Government to Leave Everyone Alone Website: AustinPetersen2016.com More or less a political hack, he worked for the Libertarian National Committee in 2008, then the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, then as a contributor for Judge Napolitano's FreedomWatch on Fox Business, then to noted Tea Party organization FreedomWorks. He founded his own business and publishes the magazine The Libertarian Republic . Derrick Michael Reid of California Slogan: Restoring American Greatness Website: TotalitarianDemocracy.com I feel like the FBI is probably tracking me for clicking on a White Supremacist website now. loving picture with him in a Civil War uniform on the front loving page. I don't know what he is because his "Resume" is so loving dense and incomprehensible. It's like pure strain libertarian. He is the only person whose website is not pretending that he's a normal person. Colloidal silver Ron Paul end the fed gold standard. Jack Robinson, Jr. of South Carolina Slogan: The Man With The Plan & Vision For America Website: RobinsonForPresident.com His Bio is devoid, and his website lacks a blog. I don't have time to delve into his policies just yet. Rhett Smith of Texas Slogan: More Freedom Less Government Website: RhettForPresident.com His website is pretty broken, with the "About" part being completely empty and only one post/video in the "Why I'm Running/Blog". Not much about his background, outside of what political activist groups he's been involved with, which seems pretty eclectic (NAACP, NOW, 40 Days for Life, etc.) Shawna Joy Sterling of Kentucky Slogan: Pro America Website: ShawnaSterling.org An ordained pastor and single mom with a geocities style website (every subheading on her website links to different websites). Apparently can't scrape together $500 to attend a Libertarian debate. Joy Waymire of California Website: Joy4ThePeoplesVoice.com Made a run for the California Governor seat in 2014, but was forced to drop out because I guess California only lets the "top two" candidates run? I don't know. Making her bid for presidency but not accepting donations. She is currently a Ranch Foreman and Spiritual Visionary, and an Army Veteran with Honorable Discharge. I have to get to work soon, but those are all the crazies that the Libertarian Party has listed as official primary candidates (basically they've all paid their membership dues and said they'll run for president).
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# ? Feb 19, 2016 08:29 |
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# ? May 14, 2024 18:16 |
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I think I would like John McAfee as president even more than Donald Trump
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# ? Feb 19, 2016 11:07 |