I was wrong
The first presidential libertarian debate. Good April Fools gag. Look, I want married gay couples to defend their marijuana plants with machine guns as much as the next guy. But these guys have all the charm and persuasiveness of moldy rocks.
April 1st, 2016 at 10:15 pm
I am basically libertarian, but there needs to be the Constitutional framework.. Otherwise libertarianism descends into various degrees of anarchy. On drugs for instance, for presidential candidates the answer of a Constitutional Libertarian is that the Federal Government has NO delegated powers over drugs. That issue belongs to the States. Re: the RKBA, the same answer. The Federal Government has NO delegated power pertaining to the People keeping or bearing arms EXCEPT the part of the militia it calls into service and EMPLOYS. That goes for tobacco and alcohol, so the DEA and the BATF should be abolished. The Federal Government has NO delegated power over education. Therefore a presidential candidate defers to State and local and the People and the Drot of Education abolished. On the other hand, libertarians often support open borders, but the Federal Government has the delegated power and duty that it “SHALL protect the States against invasion.” This is the ” classical liberalism” of the founders co dried by delegated, enumerated powers and declared Liberty.
April 1st, 2016 at 10:16 pm
Don’t worry, you won’t have to suffer under their rule.
Enjoy your Trumpillary.
April 1st, 2016 at 10:17 pm
Correction: my IPad somehow put co dried, which should be constrained.
April 1st, 2016 at 10:21 pm
Allen, the Democrats and Republicans and their Commission on Presidential Debates will have bipartisan AGREEMENT on keeping Libertarians or other parties OUT of national debates. They fear LIBERTY!!
April 1st, 2016 at 10:33 pm
No argument here Ron. Unfortunately, most Americans fear Liberty.
April 2nd, 2016 at 11:56 am
I used to call myself a libertarian. But the more I talked with those people the more I gave up on that “party.” They were almost all pot-heads who argued that we should have never gone to war with Nazi Germany because the Nazis never attacked us. Libertarians are isolationists and that is horrifying. Power abhors a vacuum and if the US isn’t a Global superpower, who will replace us? China? The Islamic world? I still believe in liberty for Americans but I can’t be the small nation isolationists that Libertarians want us to be.
April 3rd, 2016 at 1:05 pm
I find myself describing myself as libertarian on social and domestic issues, and rather conservative on the foreign policy side. Kinda hard to be a libertarian in an arena where the majority of the other players aren’t interested in that kind of self-restraint.
My view on the foreign policy positions amongst the remaining frontrunners is:
– Hillary will engage in more undeclared wars (like she did in Libya when Obama took his hand off the tiller) and annoy our allies while emboldening our enemies, basically continuing her foreign policy from the last 7+ years
– Trump is pissing off everyone, so we won’t have to worry about our relationship with allies because we won’t have any left, while our enemies are either thinking “pre-emptive strike” or “no sudden moves”
– Bernie wants chocolate pudding with RED sprinkles
– Cruz appears to have a “peace through strength” foreign policy
April 3rd, 2016 at 1:44 pm
The icon of most all self proclaimed Republican conservatives said this:
“If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism.” –Ronald Reagan
But then today’s Republican Party would reject Reagan. He did not go for their global interventionism of unconstitutional, no-win wars. Remember when a terrorist bombing killed 240 Marines in Lebanon? Reagan pulled OUT saying the irrationalism was not something our military involvement could solve and was not in our national interest. He did not go to war to set up a democracy! And when Japanese imports threatened Harley Davidson, Reagan responded with a 45% tariff (Constitutional taxing, by the way) to protect that industry. So no, the conservatism espoused by Reagan would be dismissed by today’s Republican orthodoxy.