The Unique Candidates of the New Hampshire Primary 116
30 Republicans and 14 Democrats are running for president in the New Hampshire primary this year, the largest number since 1992 when 62 candidates ran. Among other factors, the meager $1,000 fee to get one's name on the ballot makes New Hampshire an attractive place for unusual candidates. This year we have home-builder John Davis who "has budgeted $500,000 to visit all 3,143 counties in the U.S. in a 43-foot live-on bus emblazoned with a photo of himself brandishing a femur-size wrench and the slogan 'Let's Fix America.'" The oddly hatted Vermin Supreme of Rockport, Mass. is a perennial candidate who plans to run on a platform of mandatory tooth brushing and zombie preparedness. Vermin also promises a pony for every American. From the article: "If ever there were a year for has-beens, wannabes and neverwillbes pushing oddball solutions to serious problems and serious palliatives for problems no one has yet postulated, this may be it."
Re:And this is how (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Let see one implement their motto... (Score:0, Insightful)
How about just, "Live free." http://garyjohnson2012.com.
Re:Let see one implement their motto... (Score:5, Insightful)
The people who call themselves libertarians - at least in the US - are functionally identical to republicans on >99% of all matters.
The same Republican Party that gave us massive expansions in Medicare, the Department of Education, and the national debt? The same Republican Party that has shown no interest in eliminating any Federal entitlement programs, the Department of Energy, the aforementioned Department of Education, or much of anything else? The same Republican Party that's been fighting for the same absurdly broad definitions of the Interstate Commerce Clause when it suited their draconian drug policies? The same Republican Party that took the country to war against Iraq despite having no evidence that Iraq was a direct threat to the United States or its citizens? The same Republican Party that continued and supported US troops being stationed in over 150 countries around the world? The Republican Party that supported the likes of George W. Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger? No Child Left Behind? Massive Federal land grabs? FCC censorship? Support for Federal marriage restrictions and Federal abortion limitations? Support for banning flag burning? Indefinite detention of American citizens captured on US soil like Jose Padilla? No Fourth Amendment protections for Americans returning to the United States? Invasive and dangerous searches at airports by security which became forcibly Federalized? Bailouts and takeovers of private businesses?
It just goes on and on and it's been going on for decades. The Republican base and the GOP itself are -NOTHING- like libertarians. Most Republicans I've seen don't have a clue what the first, fourth, fifth, sixth, eighth, ninth, and tenth Amendments are, why we have them, and why they should care about them. Democrats are certainly no better when it comes to the second, fifth, eighth, ninth, and tenth Amendments. President Obama picked up exactly where George W. Bush left off pulling the same kind of garbage, only with a more articulate spin on why shredding the Constitution is the right thing to do. Where's your hope and change? It's in Guantanamo Bay, the Obamacare insurance company giveaway, the Federal Reserve trying to run the economy behind the curtain, and the continued bailouts and stimulus that have kept us barely treading water while adding the weight of debt to our ankles and threatening to drown us all slowly and painfully.
Let me correct your statement for you:
The people who call themselves the Democratic Party - at least in the US - are functionally identical to the Republican Party on >99% of all matters.
Not a one of them gives a damn about you or me. Neither of them has our interests at heart. Neither of them has or cares about solutions. The only thing they care about is selling you a promise to get your vote so they can take your money and sell your ass for a carton of Lucky's the first chance they get once they make it through the next election. They've got you playing these stupid games of blaming this group or that when all the while it is they who tug on your strings like expert puppeteers making you put on a show for their benefit.
You see, what you're missing is a very simple fact of life almost universally lost on folks thinking that government can be a force for good: government IS politicians. libertarians don't want small government because we hate the poor or because we don't want to do our part to help those around us. libertarians want small government because all governments are inherently populated with these kinds of self-serving scumbags within a few years of their formation and we want to limit the amount of damage they can do. The larger your government is, the smaller you are by comparison in the eyes of the egomaniacs who seek that kind of power. You're a tool for them to use to build a machine that enriches them and their cronies. Any good that comes from their actions is purely for PR purposes and the sheer level of damage caused is truly unimaginable.
50 sm
Re:Let see one implement their motto... (Score:5, Insightful)
Tethered to corporate everything? Ron Paul?
Wow, another slashdot message in blind support of Ron Paul. Shocked, I am not. Said message didn't bother to read all of what I said; also not shocking.
The one who is against corporate personhood?
Saying you're against corporate "personhood", and then removing regulations that prevent corporations from effectively owning people and walking all over both those they do and those they do not own, are a conflict that Ron Paul has no apparent problem with. He is fine to strip out government regulations that keep our water, air, and food safe. That's not libertarianism; that's just extreme pro-business action.
What a shocking surprise, that you wrote up a message of nonsense, in reply to a message that you didn't read in its entirety, and yet you got moderated up because you praised Ron Paul. Next you're going to try to tell us that there is a secret enclave of far-left slashdotters holding you down.
Sounds like... (Score:5, Insightful)
...a good place for the Pirate Party to start running candidates.
Re:Oddly enough (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd take the super rat guy over a bigoted, homophobic asshole [youtube.com] any day of the week.
Re:Let see one implement their motto... (Score:2, Insightful)
The Republican party today is not the same as the one back in Reagan's era, in fact it's changed quite a lot just in this decade alone, and the stuff the current Republican candidates are saying on the campaign trail is straight out of an ultra pro-corporatist anti-regulation playbook, almost identical to what the Libertarians spout, except with some added fundamentalist religion to appease the evangelical Christian voters. The current candidates have been talking a lot lately about eliminating the Dept of Education, the FAA, the FCC, and any other Federal agency that stands in the way of corporate profits. Taking the country to war, however, is still perfectly fine by them as one thing they don't want to downsize or eliminate is the DoD, and the hefty contracts for defense contractors. As for marriage and abortion stuff, again, those things don't stand in the way of corporate profits, yet they bring in votes from the evangelicals and fundies.
You're mostly right about many of your other points, especially Obama and the "change" (or lack thereof) he brought. But your idea of what libertarianism is, and what real national-level politicians who call themselves Libertarian or espouse Libertarian principles consider to be libertarianism, are two different things.
Yes, he's the crazy one. (Score:4, Insightful)
As opposed to the serious candidates who what us to build an electric fence to keep the mexican't out, full body scan everybody at the airports to protect us from the terrorists, start wars in the middle east to bring about peace, and keep pot illegal in the face of irrefutable evidence that it is not harmful and it's prohibition kills thousands every year.