TAMPA, April 22, 2012 – Self-made millionaire and former two-term governor of New Mexico Gary Johnson initially sought the Republican Party’s nomination for president.
After being largely excluded from the early debates, Johnson left the Republican Party and now seeks the Libertarian Party’s nomination.
“It’s always been about the message,” Mr. Johnson says. “I’m a messenger. I think for the most part I’m delivering the same message as Ron Paul. I think that the message is identifying the solutions to the problems that this country faces and genuinely recognizing the solutions. Having been excluded from the Republican debates, that really was a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
So what are the solutions that Johnson proposes?
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Gary Johnson a “libertarian?” HAH! Hardly. “Libertarian” in the same sense that 2008 presidential candidate (and ultimate Washington Insider and ueber-Drug Warrior) Bob Barr was “libertarian” only when compared to the other openly Establishment-owned candidates John McInsane or Barack Obombya. If you scrape away the thin paper mache facade, however, you’ll find pure, raw, unadorned statism/collectivism. In Johnson’s case, how can any “libertarian” justify replacing one form of theft (the income tax) with another form of theft (the “consumption” tax)? A real libertarian would advocate the complete abolition of ALL federal taxes. Fortunately for those of us who really love liberty, it just so happens that a real libertarian presidential candidate is already in the running –and winning primaries–who proposes doing exactly that (hint: his name ain’t Gary Johnson). Of course I certainly anticipate hearing the usual sophistry in the form of “but Ron Paul can’t win” or “half loaf is better than none.” Sorry, but REAL PRINCIPLE takes precedent over political theater. Otherwise, you get MOSS (“more of the same s***”), under which Amerika is now buried and which threatens to consume it in the very near future.
No, Johnson is just another Establishment plant masquerading as a libertarian, his sole purpose being to gull the millions of unthinking and uncommitted who think (sorta, maybe, they dunno) that they believe in something that sounds kinda like freedom, but they’re just not sure. As with Barr in 2008, there is no better way to derail the candidacy of a REAL libertarian contender for the office than to toss in a washed-up insider who “is much more electable because they have less radical views and are willing to ‘work within the system’ [read sell out].” Heaven forbid that the votards should be persuaded into voting for the REAL libertarian candidate who is currently on the fast track to success. That guy might ACTUALLY CHANGE THINGS if elected (doubtful, given that he’ll face a hostile Congress ruled by both wings of the Establishment Party, but he’ll give it a serious try). God knows THAT can’t be allowed to happen.
I’ve been a committed non-voter for nearly twenty years (see H.L. Mencken’s writings for an explanation as to why), with not even a successful Ron Paul presidency enough to convince me to make an exception. Why then would I violate my principles to truly “waste a vote” on somebody who is only marginally, if at all, different from the other Establishment slugs pursuing the reins of power?
Nice try, but no sale.
You can’t argue for eliminating *all* federal taxes. Or else you would completely de-fund the federal government, eliminating it entirely. That’s not libertarianism – it’s anarchy.
Calling Gary Johnson an establishment candidate is absolutely ridiculous. It was the GOP establishment and the MSM that prevented him from gaining any traction at all in the Republican primary. Johnson defeated several other establishment candidates in order to win his GOP primary to become governor in the 90s. He then spent most of his tenure vetoing legislation and slashing the size of government. After his 8 years as governor taxes were lower, the State had more money in the bank, and the government was considerably smaller than when it began.
Yes, Johnson is pragmatic. He isn’t the perfect embodiment of libertarian ideals. But he believes very strongly in the basic libertarian maxims: Fiscally conservative, socially tolerant and less government, more freedom. And his record shows it.
You let me know when the Jesus of anarcho-capitalism shows up. When he does, I’ll vote for him. But until then I’d rather back someone with 8 years of executive experience and a record of following through on libertarian principles over the other candidates – most of whom have never even held a political office. Waxing eloquent about liberty is nice. Doing something about it is nicer.
You can’t argue for eliminating *all* federal taxes. Or else you would completely de-fund the federal government, eliminating it entirely. That’s not libertarianism – it’s anarchy.
To sentence number 1: Of course you can. Their immorality and destructiveness aside, this nation not only survived, but PROSPERED for it’s first one hundred and forty years precisely because of the absence of such taxes. The founders knew exactly what they were doing when they specifically forbade such taxes in the original Constitution.
To sentence number 2: So what (see my response to your first sentence)? In fact, that option would be the answer to many, if not most of the problems currently afflicting us.
To sentence number 3: Wrong. You obviously confuse anarchy, which means the absence of a centralized authority with a monopoly on coercive force with chaotic, nihilistic violence and civilizational collapse. (Don’t worry; you’re FAR from the only one out there to make that mistake.) Contrary to popular belief, the former DOES NOT result automatically in the latter. To assume that a coercive state is an absolute necessity is to imply that every man’s fundamental motivation for getting out of bed in the morning is to plunder and kill his fellow man. Were that the case, all the government in the world wouldn’t prevent such a thing from happening on a massive scale. Since we don’t see blood flowing in the streets now, even with the relatively small concentration of state-sanctioned force now in effect (relatively small compared to the population as a whole), it’s quite apparent that “anarchy,” as you call it, isn’t the real problem: the fear of and inability of most people to conceive of life as a sovereign, responsible individual is.
Calling Gary Johnson an establishment candidate is absolutely ridiculous.
Really? So embracing illegal and immoral military interventionism abroad (albeit on a selective basis differing in form from that of advocated by the current Establishment), advocating another flavor of taxation just as odious and destructive as the ones were already choking on, and advocating exactly nothing that would seriously role back the size and cost of the current unsustainable government isn’t a mark of an “establishment” candidate? I guess we do indeed inhabit different philosophical universes.
It was the GOP establishment and the MSM that prevented him from gaining any traction at all in the Republican primary. Johnson defeated several other establishment candidates in order to win his GOP primary to become governor in the 90s. He then spent most of his tenure vetoing legislation and slashing the size of government. After his 8 years as governor taxes were lower, the State had more money in the bank, and the government was considerably smaller than when it began.
BUT, and this is a big “but,” the fundamental apparatus of government in New Mexico changed not at all. If Johnson were really a libertarian, he would have made serious efforts at every opportunity to abolish state bureaucracies, veto legislative calls for more taxes and regulations, and, above all, tellWashington D.C. to get the hell out of his state. Did he ever, for example, publicly refuse to allow New Mexico to accept a single penny of federal highway funds, one of the most popular means by which Washington shackles the states with extra-Constitutional mandates? Did he ever interpose the government of the state of New Mexico between the federal government and residents of his state who were the victims of extra-legal federal depredations (e.g., asset forfeitures, IRS seizures of New Mexicans’ property or money, DEA drug raids, etc.)? Did he ever refuse to allow the New Mexico “National Guard” [sic] to be co-opted by Rome-on-the-Potomac to be shipped halfway around the globe to fight immoral and unconstitutional wars?
Unless he took genuine, principled stands on a consistent basis for liberty by putting himself on the line, he is nothing but an Establishment cog, or, at best, a passive enabler of said Establishment. A handful of miniscule, token tax cuts and a token resistance to drug laws don’t cut it! As for the “the State had more money in the bank, and the government was considerably smaller than when it began” line, again, SO WHAT? First of all, a governor who really believed in liberty would return all that “money in the bank” to the people to whom it belonged, that being the taxpayers of New Mexico. Having “money in the bank” only encourages irresponsible politicians to spend unnecessarily. More to the point, you can bet that all of that “money in the bank” is now LONG GONE, having been spent in a matter of days or hours after Golden Gary left office. Ditto for the idea of New Mexico’s government being “smaller.” Again, SO WHAT? Is that “smaller government” now any more respectful of the citizenry’s liberties and property than its “larger” predecessor? If you believe so, I still have some PRIME beachfront property in Albuquerque that has your name all over it.
Once again, no sale. As I mentioned earlier, if a shallow fraud like Johnson is the majority’s idea of a candidate for “liberty,” then it’s pretty much “game over.”