libertarian Party was looking attractive

[werepossum]

I suppose if he isn't a criminal and has at least one decent principle that puts him ahead of the other two.

Way, way ahead. I fundamentally disagree with him on two major issues, free trade and immigration. However, I can recognize that his are honest, principled beliefs in line with his overall philosophy. Therefore he's as close to my ideal candidate as I am likely to get.

I'll bet TPP is passed in lame duck session after the elections. They'll attach something for the left like gun control measure and attach something for the right like more VA funding, it will barely pass because only the safe representatives and out going will vote for majority of the others will vote no but secretly they want yes they just don't want to be on record supporting it. The ones that do support it will say that what we had to do to get gun stuff or VA stuff done.

Probably, although I think the left is as avid for VA funding as is the right. Nobody wants to be seen as being weak on supporting veterans, and if memory serves the Democrats have been better on this issue than the Pubbies in recent years. But your point is valid; they all want it, they just need a little cover.

 

[BurnItDwn]

The USA needs a proper Labor Party, not some shit smeared corporate backed phony "liberal" party, but an actual Labor party, like classic Canadian, french, UK, Australian, labor parties Post WW2. Democraps and republicants are broken and our 2 party system has failed us.

 

[blankslate]

If you can't stomach Hillary or Donald have a gander at either the libertarian or green party depending on your political inclinations.

I will not vote for Hillary because I fear Trump. I will not vote for Trump because I fear immigrants. Fuck that they'd have to earn my votes and neither did.


______________

 

[Genx87]

If you can't stomach Hillary or Donald have a gander at either the libertarian or green party depending on your political inclinations.

I will not vote for Hillary because I fear Trump. I will not vote for Trump because I fear immigrants. Fuck that they'd have to earn my votes and neither did.


______________

It is amazing to me all the feminists who refuse to get behind Jill Stein. She is an amazing candidate on her own. Put her next to Clinton and it isnt even close.

 

[theeedude]

Why do people expect libertarianism to be anything other than corporatism when it comes to business issues?

 

[Genx87]

Why do people expect libertarianism to be anything other than corporatism when it comes to business issues?

Says the guy voting democrat. What part of the libertarian platform is corporatism? This should be good.

 

[Exophase]

Not surprising that Gary Johnson would be in favor of another trade deal that heavily benefits corporate interests at the expense of jobs, individual rights and the environment. This is the same candidate who wants to eliminate income tax and move to a pure sales tax system that would be highly regressive.

 

[werepossum]

If you can't stomach Hillary or Donald have a gander at either the libertarian or green party depending on your political inclinations.

I will not vote for Hillary because I fear Trump. I will not vote for Trump because I fear immigrants. Fuck that they'd have to earn my votes and neither did.


______________

This, exactly. Whichever of these horrible people becomes President will do so without my vote. No more lesser evils.

I have several huge policy differences with Gary Johnson, but at least he's an honorable man.

 

[woolfe9998]

Serious question, why do people think this trade agreement will be a net economic negative? By that, I mean jobs and real wages. I'm not asking for a dissertation on why such a trade agreement could be a job killer in theory. I know the basic arguments made by both sides. I am talking about actual academic study of real trade agreements in practice as well as studies which may have been done on the TPP in particular.

I ask, because I've heard similar things about NAFTA but the studies done on the effects of NAFTA on jobs have produced very mixed results. The overarching conclusion being that NAFTA has neither created nor destroyed terribly many jobs.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...bernie-s/sanders-overshoots-nafta-job-losses/

If memory serves, the TPP has also been studied to determine projected economic effects and the results also vary.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/02/b...arply-split-over-trade-deal-effects.html?_r=0

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Serious question, why do people think this trade agreement will be a net economic negative? By that, I mean jobs and real wages. I'm not asking for a dissertation on why such a trade agreement could be a job killer in theory. I know the basic arguments made by both sides. I am talking about actual academic study of real trade agreements in practice as well as studies which may have been done on the TPP in particular.

I ask, because I've heard similar things about NAFTA but the studies done on the effects of NAFTA on jobs have produced very mixed results. The overarching conclusion being that NAFTA has neither created nor destroyed terribly many jobs.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...bernie-s/sanders-overshoots-nafta-job-losses/

If memory serves, the TPP has also been studied to determine projected economic effects and the results also vary.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/02/b...arply-split-over-trade-deal-effects.html?_r=0

Because this time the details & planning were pretty secretive. There also is the feeling. You'd have trouble finding a normal person who feels NAFTA helped them out.
Similar to how I can find studies that show a vegan lifestyle and being about 20% under weight is good for you it just doesn't feel good.
I know this is a fact based forum and I'm ready for my beating talking about feelings.

 

[woolfe9998]

Because this time the details & planning were pretty secretive. There also is the feeling. You'd have trouble finding a normal person who feels NAFTA helped them out.
Similar to how I can find studies that show a vegan lifestyle and being about 20% under weight is good for you it just doesn't feel good.
I know this is a fact based forum and I'm ready for my beating talking about feelings.

You should be. Because your "feelings" about the impact of a trade agreement, a complex and highly technical thing, are simply not relevant. You just made an argument that trade deals should be opposed based on faith. Believe whatever you want to believe? Here's a little theory: no one thinks NAFTA helped them because people keep saying over and over again that it killed jobs in spite of the fact that the evidence is at best inconclusive.

The trouble I have with this issue is that it is difficult to accurately know the impact of these trade deals, as reflected by the disagreement among economists who have actually studied them. But hey, this is an internet discussion forum. Everyone here is a climatologist, an economist, and who knows what else.

What I see are people who take a position based on pure ideology and whatever information confirms it is great, while whatever information opposes it is presumably false.

 

[blankslate]

Serious question, why do people think this trade agreement will be a net economic negative?

As Fanatical Meat said the planning and details were pretty secretive. If you're a senator or representative you can look at it but you cannot bring any items that would allow you to take notes about what's in the agreement. You cannot take copies out of the area either.

Now as for the part the has a lot of people concerned.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/tpp-isds-constitution/396389/

It is January 2017. The mayor of San Francisco signs a bill that will raise the minimum wage of all workers from $8 to $16 an hour effective July 1st. His lawyers assure him that neither federal nor California minimum wage laws forbid that and that it is fine under the U.S. Constitution.

Then, a month later, a Vietnamese company that owns 15 restaurants in San Francisco files a lawsuit saying that the pay increase violates the “investor protection” provisions of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement recently approved by Congress. The lawsuit is not in a federal or state court, but instead will be heard by three private arbitrators; the United States government is the sole defendant; and the city can participate only if the U.S. allows it.

It is not a far-fetched scenario. The TPP reportedly includes such provisions, as a means of solving a thorny problem. In the United States, the courts are, by and large, independent and willing to fairly decide challenges to arbitrary government laws and rulings, no matter who the plaintiff is. The same is not consistently true in less developed countries.

The solution proposed in the TPP is to allow foreign investors to bring claims for money damages over violations of the TPP’s investor protection provisions before a private arbitration tribunal that operates outside the challenged government’s court system. One arbitrator would be chosen by the investor, one by the country being challenged, and a third by agreement of the other two arbitrators.

The arbitrators are often lawyers who specialize in international trade and investment, for whom serving as arbitrators is only one source of their income. Unlike U.S. judges, they are not salaried but paid by the hour, and they can rotate between arbitrating cases and representing investors suing governments.

Despite the fairness of our court system, the U.S. government has consented in prior trade agreements, and in a leaked version of the still-secret TPP, to allow foreign investors to bypass our courts and instead move to “investor-state” arbitration. Thus, challenges based upon TPP to our duly enacted laws and other regulatory actions would be decided by three individuals who are not government officials and need not be American citizens. And they would have the final word as to whether the federal government will be compelled to pay damages, because there is no judicial review in any U.S. court of the merits of these arbitral rulings.

The above is why both conservatives and liberals are opposing the agreement. Conservatives worry more about giving up "sovereignty" and allowing the U.S. to be bound by arbitration where the arbitrators might not have any loyalty to the U.S.

Liberals tend to worry about safety and environmental laws being overturned because those make it harder for corporations to increase profits.

more details

In recent years, there has been a major increase in the use of arbitration in the United States to decide commercial disputes, but those cases involve contracts in which the parties agreed to arbitration, with the outcome generally depending on how factual issues are resolved

TPP arbitrators, by contrast, will decide what is essentially a legal question: whether governmental actions, which are designed to protect our health, safety, environment and economic well-being, are consistent with the TPP.

Those protections extend from locally enacted laws like the San Francisco minimum-wage provision, to state statutes and regulatory actions, to laws passed by Congress and decisions of federal regulatory agencies. And under the TPP, as under other trade agreements, decisions of a majority of the arbitrators on compliance with the TPP will not be subject to review in any court, federal or state.


Among the other important public policy measures currently being debated that might be the basis for a TPP claim by a foreign investor include water rationing in California, the legality of selling e-cigarettes to minors, and the state regulation of medical facilities performing abortions.

If a foreign investor won a TPP arbitration in these situations or the wage increase discussed above, that would not only cost the Treasury, but it would disadvantage American competitors who cannot benefit from TPP arbitrations, unless the offending law were set aside. And if governments feel compelled to set aside such laws in response to adverse rulings, the three arbitrators will effectively have substituted their own judgments for that of the electorate.

There's a reason why no one in the mainstream media is talking about the TPP because they are owned by organizations that would benefit from arbitration instead of court decisions.

It is why I am extremely harsh on candidates who support it (whether explicitly or tacitly by not speaking out in firm opposition to it) and their supporters who are ignorant of these concerns about the TPP


____________________

 

[sm625]

Johnson refuses to go after the medical monopolies. That is reason enough to reject the libertarian party. There is nothing "libertarian" about laws preventing you from crossing a border and buying perfectly legal drugs for $10 that sell for $480 on the other side of the border. That crap is wholly outrageous and the fact that Johnson wont touch it is purely outrageous. Imagine the hell we'd be in if all arbitrage was abolished! Imagine if a i7-6700k sold for $500 here in the US and only $100 in mexico, and it was illegal to go to mexico and buy a 6700k for $100 and bring it across the border.

 

[theeedude]

Libertarian = Corporatist.
Just look at Peter Thiel.
He's all "libertarian" but if you exercise your own 1st Amendment liberty, he'll use his money to sue you into bankruptcy.

 

[Genx87]

Libertarian = Corporatist.
Just look at Peter Thiel.
He's all "libertarian" but if you exercise your own 1st Amendment liberty, he'll use his money to sue you into bankruptcy.

Says the guy voting democrat. What part of the libertarian platform is corporatism? This should be good.

 

[woolfe9998]

Says the guy voting democrat. What part of the libertarian platform is corporatism? This should be good.

Failing to regulate corporate behavior is pro-corporation. Libertarians do not want regulations.

 

[Genx87]

Failing to regulate corporate behavior is pro-corporation. Libertarians do not want regulations.

The idea that curtailing over burdening regulation equals corporatism is silly. And the idea Libertarians want zero regulation is ridiculous. Is this where you convince us Libertarians are anarchists?

And you understand a lot of these regulations are created as barriers to entry and pushed by entrenched interests(corporations) right?

 

[woolfe9998]

The idea that curtailing over burdening regulation equals corporatism is silly. And the idea Libertarians want zero regulation is ridiculous. Is this where you convince us Libertarians are anarchists?

And you understand a lot of these regulations are created as barriers to entry and pushed by entrenched interests(corporations) right?

I've spent lots of time reading and listening to libertarians. As a rule, they want radically smaller government. That means very little in the way of regulations. Which means a paradise for corporations.

So far as regulations go, I take them on case by case. Over-burdening regulations should be relaxed or ditched. Other areas may require more regulation. I don't approach the issue ideologically, as if most/all regulations are bad or good. That is what libertarians and other ideologues do.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

You should be. Because your "feelings" about the impact of a trade agreement, a complex and highly technical thing, are simply not relevant. You just made an argument that trade deals should be opposed based on faith. Believe whatever you want to believe? Here's a little theory: no one thinks NAFTA helped them because people keep saying over and over again that it killed jobs in spite of the fact that the evidence is at best inconclusive.

The trouble I have with this issue is that it is difficult to accurately know the impact of these trade deals, as reflected by the disagreement among economists who have actually studied them. But hey, this is an internet discussion forum. Everyone here is a climatologist, an economist, and who knows what else.

What I see are people who take a position based on pure ideology and whatever information confirms it is great, while whatever information opposes it is presumably false.

Feelings and appearances can be important. Why should I support yet another huge trade deal when nobody who supports it can even one concrete, definite big thing that benefits me.
Would you say the same thing about feelings to a child who refused a ride from a stranger because they had a bad feeling about the person? Feelings are analog they are not exactly right or wrong but they tend to lead us in the people direction.

 

[Jhhnn]

I've spent lots of time reading and listening to libertarians. As a rule, they want radically smaller government. That means very little in the way of regulations. Which means a paradise for corporations.

So far as regulations go, I take them on case by case. Over-burdening regulations should be relaxed or ditched. Other areas may require more regulation. I don't approach the issue ideologically, as if most/all regulations are bad or good. That is what libertarians and other ideologues do.

Middle class libertopians are romantic corporate dupes. The only buffer between raging international corporatism in all its awful glory & ordinary people is govt. The only reason they give a flying fuck about us is because our govt forces it upon them.

 

[werepossum]

Middle class libertopians are romantic corporate dupes. The only buffer between raging international corporatism in all its awful glory & ordinary people is govt. The only reason they give a flying fuck about us is because our govt forces it upon them.

Normally everybody thinks you run with Stupid perpetually set to 11. It's nice when you occasionally show us that you can kick Stupid into overdrive when you wish. It's like when a gang murders a whole family and we think "Gee, I'm glad they usually just murder one or two people at a time." Except with stupidity instead of guns of course.

 

[woolfe9998]

Feelings and appearances can be important. Why should I support yet another huge trade deal when nobody who supports it can even one concrete, definite big thing that benefits me.
Would you say the same thing about feelings to a child who refused a ride from a stranger because they had a bad feeling about the person? Feelings are analog they are not exactly right or wrong but they tend to lead us in the people direction.

You're trying to compare getting a "funny feeling" about a person you have directly interacted with to having a "bad feeling" about a trade deal. While we can ascertain some things about people we meet but don't know well, the truth is we know nothing about a trade deal other than what we read or hear. And if what you're reading or hearing is providing good reasons to oppose the deal, then you ought to be able to explain that without reference to your feelings. Blankslate was able to do that above, and while I'm not sure the reasons he gave justify the apparent intensity of his opposition, he did at least give reasons. Can you imagine if every time you asked someone to justify their position, the response was "well that's just how I feel"? Seriously?

While I'm sure your feelings are important to you, I think you can understand why they do not constitute a particularly sound argument to others.

 

[werepossum]

You're trying to compare getting a "funny feeling" about a person you have directly interacted with to having a "bad feeling" about a trade deal. While we can ascertain some things about people we meet but don't know well, the truth is we know nothing about a trade deal other than what we read or hear. And if what you're reading or hearing is providing good reasons to oppose the deal, then you ought to be able to explain that without reference to your feelings. Blankslate was able to do that above, and while I'm not sure the reasons he gave justify the apparent intensity of his opposition, he did at least give reasons. Can you imagine if every time you asked someone to justify their position, the response was "well that's just how I feel"? Seriously?

While I'm sure your feelings are important to you, I think you can understand why they do not constitute a particularly sound argument to others.

Supporting the TPP is akin to saying "I demand that you give this kick in the nuts a fair chance, because unlike all the other kicks in the nuts that I promised would feel great and actually hurt like hell, I promise this kick in the nuts will make you feel great."

 

[woolfe9998]

Supporting the TPP is akin to saying "I demand that you give this kick in the nuts a fair chance, because unlike all the other kicks in the nuts that I promised would feel great and actually hurt like hell, I promise this kick in the nuts will make you feel great."

Yeah, your analogies are always amusing. Unfortunately, I will continue to be unimpressed by arguments for or against this trade deal until I see a case made from reasonable evidence. In particular, I refuse to conform to the zeitgeist against trade agreements largely because the last time around with NAFTA, after all the doomsaying and bellyaching, the evidence suggests we didn't really lose net jobs from it. I'm open to persuasion about the TPP but the opposition right now feels ideological rather than evidence based.

 

[agent00f]

Yeah, your analogies are always amusing. Unfortunately, I will continue to be unimpressed by arguments for or against this trade deal until I see a case made from reasonable evidence. In particular, I refuse to conform to the zeitgeist against trade agreements largely because the last time around with NAFTA, after all the doomsaying and bellyaching, the evidence suggests we didn't really lose net jobs from it. I'm open to persuasion about the TPP but the opposition right now feels ideological rather than evidence based.

The basic reality is that most people in the first world are overpaid relative to the intl labor market. In the long term, a capitalist system will settle this discrepancy. The only question is how long it takes and the outcomes for the parties involved.

It's generally in the interest of capitalists/bourgeois to speed up the process, and people who work for a living to slow it down. Free trade deals squeeze the gas pedal. However, slowing the process has its own problems, like creating dead end industries that get outsourced wholesale.

Politically speaking, the capitalist system is represented by the (neo)liberal economic parties in most of the world, but traditionally in the US by the GOP. Apparently some of their prol members have been figuring out that they've been sold down the river by the leadership all this time, which is part of why they've backed trump who conveniently promises to represent prol interests.

--

Serious american Libertarians (like the party) are just GOP/liberal economics without the social-issues & warmongering baggage. They're in the vicinity of traditional right-wing parties elsewhere in the world. The comedy-hour rand/mises LOLbertarians are unimportant and can + should be ignored.